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copperbadge · 4 months

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Supposedly, people with Anphantasia don't get scared reading scary stories, or at least not much. Is that true with you if you ever read Horror?

You know, I'd never thought about it, but I suppose it is. To an extent, anyway.

Follows a discussion of my relationship to horror prose and media; if you don't know what aphantasia is, as many people coming to this tumblr don't, I have a tag for it here that may help -- it's basically the lack of a "mind's eye", a visual imagination, so I hear/read things and don't see an image of them in my mind. If you are scoffing right now that nobody actually has a mind's eye, congratulations, you may also have aphantasia. The articles linked in the tag will be useful to you.

I have definitely been scared by prose before but it's very rare, and not much since I was a child, when the stories I found scary were preying on fears I already had. I loved the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books, and I think it's not unusual that I found the illustrations more frightening than the prose, but the only story that ever scared me was the one about the vampire who kept trying to grab a kid through a window -- because I had a window over my bed in my childhood bedroom and I was terrified I'd look up to see someone looking down at me through it. Likewise, as an adult, the only content in horror I find scary is what I think of as "mind horror" -- the loss of faculty or the loss of awareness of faculty (think the end scene of the novel Hannibal with the brain). Which is one of my biggest fears.

I don't read much horror because generally I get bored, which has in the past made me feel faintly appalled at myself, but which now makes more sense. Certainly I have no interest in slasher-style gore in prose, because I find it uninteresting and it goes on a really long time, while I don't watch it in movies/TV because the visual is upsetting -- so if I was getting the visual from the prose I might react more emotionally. I am a fan of Stephen King but mostly his early work where he was shorter on suspense, and I was reading it because I liked the ideas and the characters. Carrie is super interesting because of the personalities involved, not because of the violence or the horror aspects. But I've never seen a movie adaptation and I can imagine I would be deeply unsettled if not distraught by certain scenes if depicted visually. Although I didn't find the Hannibal TV series super upsetting (I mostly was put off by how bad I imagined Will smelled) so perhaps body horror just doesn't do it for me.

This may also explain my hard-no on zombie media, because I'm not scared at all of zombies, I just find them boring and gross, and that leaves the post-apocalyptic humans. My hard-no on post-apocalypse anything is an aversion to imagining the end of my world, though, which isn't visual, it's conceptual, and not scary, just upsetting.

Like, people kept suggesting Zombies Run! to me when I was taking up running and -- well, one, I needed the music to keep my pace, I didn't want it interrupted. But two, I didn't see why a bunch of random groaning noises would make me run faster. If you could see zombies chasing you in your head, yeah, that'd probably be more motivating.

It kind of explains too why I haven't written much horror. I used to be very curious about how people worked out what's "scary" in horror prose and I guess part of the curiosity came from not experiencing it myself. It's tough to know how to write a scary story when stories don't scare you.

To be clear, I definitely experience fear. Reading Stephen King's "It" didn't really scare me, but there were scary moments in the film adaptations. I startle at jumpscares. There's plenty of stuff in real life that I'm scared of. And even podcasts -- I don't get mental images during podcasts like apparently most people do, but Magnus Archives got me with the "digging into your pre-existing fears" thing once or twice, and while I didn't finish The Left Right Game (I just got bored) the hitchhiker scene definitely got me. But I think, unless it's playing on something conceptual that already existed, yeah, I don't find prose particularly frightening.

Huh. This feels like the kind of thing that could have a significant impact on my creative output if I could crowbar my way into it. Knowing that I as an aphantic don't need descriptions that other people do has already, I think, impacted my editing process, but this feels like it maybe would somehow have an effect on the whole thing -- the fact that I don't experience emotions when reading in the same way other people do because I don't get the visuals is something to meditate on.

How the fuck did I ever even become a writer. Like what's up with that.

(Ironically it was X-Files fanfic. X-Files, a show that very much did scare me, for which I wrote and read a lot of fanfic, none of which did...yikes. Well, that's something to meditate on for the weekend.)

#sam has adhd #an aphantasia fantasia

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romanceyourdemons · 27 days

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i deeply enjoyed david cronenberg’s psychological thriller a history of violence (2005). conceptually, the film reads as a spiritual successor to david lynch’s blue velvet (1986) and an answer to martin scorsese’s goodfellas (1990), films that, like this, superimpose two of the most fundamentally all-american literary worlds, the world of the white picket fence small town and the world of noir-inspired east coast organized crime. as in blue velvet (1986), this film depicts an exaggeratedly innocent small town, with a copland-esque score and cronenberg’s visuals further developing the sense of secluded, venerable, trustworthy cleanliness he used for the stephen king small town in the dead zone (1983). just as goodfellas (1990) uses the brief glimpse of this kind of town to indicate its uniquely romanticized take on the american dream, so does this film use a brief glimpse of the kind of world of crime built up in goodfellas (1990) to indicate its own romanticized take on the american dream. in both cases, two distinct, familiar, and usually utterly segregated romanticized visions of all-american life, and the associated views of masculinity, are laid side by side for the audience’s view. however, whereas both goodfellas (1990) and blue velvet (1986) present the world of noir and the world of the white picket fence as so utterly distinct that the portal between them can only be traversed by one person, this film shows these two legendary, mutually incompatible americas—the america you are supposed to want and supposed to find emasculating, and the america you are supposed to be forced into and supposed to find titillating—coexisting in compartmentalized cognitive dissonance in the film’s characters. the film has two sex scenes between viggo mortensen’s ex-hitman character and his small-town wife; the first (literally) fetishizes the innocent apple-pie high school experience, and the second fetishizes the violence and danger of the world of organized crime. despite their apparent polar differences, both worlds center around clearly parallel fictions of masculinity, where the specter of homosexuality looms large and the capacity for violence is expected—demanded—even though actual displays of violence are met with horror, disapproval, and punishment. due to the messier connection this film presents between the worlds, it does not have the clean, portal fantasy-like ending of blue velvet (1986) or goodfellas (1990); at the end of the film, all the characters are uncomfortably aware of how tenuous and unreal their beloved american dream worlds are, and have no choice but to steel themselves to return to the dream. i deeply enjoyed the story, style, and presentation of a history of violence (2005), and i would highly recommend it

#ryddles

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jennifersbod · 8 months

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as a fellow stephen king girly, what are some of your favorite king recs?? looking for my next pick and thinking maybe salem’s lot or the stand… thots??

both of those are great! the stand is a long, long read so make sure you have time to invest. salem’s lot is a classic for a reason BUT definitely had some issues holding up when i tried to reread it (maybe i just wasn’t in the mood when i tried idk). my most recent was revival, which shocked me how good it was- especially the ending! it had some great references to a certain famous classic horror novel by a woman (don’t want to spoil it), but it mixes that with some really bleak cosmic horror that is very unlike his other works. i’ve also found craig dilouie (children of red peak and episode 13 are his best) and ronald malfi (come with me and black mouth are his best i’ve read) have similar styles to king so give them a read if you need that vibe.

my faves in no order:

carrie (my first stephen and what got me into “adult” horror)

the shining + doctor sleep (personally think doctor sleep is so underrated and too many people couldn’t get past the vampire-esque concept)

salem’s lot (also like the best adaptation of this is midnight mass despite not being an adaptation and i hope flanagan continues his original novel that he posted an excerpt from)

IT (can’t explain how much this one means to me; read it while listening to cobra starship and fall out boy if you want my middle school Experience™️ reading it)

pet sematary (it’s a classic for a reason but watch out because i felt this one did women especially dirty)

rose madder (a deep cut that stephen himself hates but i absolutely love- big tw’s for domestic violence though)

gerald’s game (also the movie lives up to and may surpass the book)

joyland (a kind of sweet coming-of-age/noir slow burn that’s a really tame but quick read)

christine (i’m from pittsburgh where it takes place so it’s special to me and its best adaptation is actually Halloween Ends and if anyone wants to discuss that further with me please do)

11/22/63 (great if you like historical fiction and for a quick cameo by some IT characters!)

#thank you so much for asking me this #i literally got into college with an essay about stephen king 👑#also let me know yours and what you think of your next read!!!#always looking to add to my giant tbr #lowkey miss my king url #mutuals tag #jen talks books #horror #stephen king

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shastafirecracker · 8 months

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Heyo! Sorry for coming into ur ask box randomly but I was thinking about one of ur responses to the last ask meme about how you have some ideas stewing on the backburner that, if you wrote them, would probably be huge and maybe more work than you could have time/energy for. if the universe was the perfect place that we deserve where we could just. beam our thoughts into a blank doc perfectly somehow, what are a couple of the things that you'd write?

aw man... well, in no particular order, I've done very rough idea-sketching for the following trigun AUs:

basically Stephen King's The Mist except a bunch of people are stuck in a diner were Vash (vagrant with mysterious past) is working as a dishwasher and Wolfwood (priest who manages the orphanage attached to a megachurch with deep corruption) is taking about a dozen kids out for lunch so that Miss Melanie can get some shut-eye. the mist happens and all sorts of dramas afflict the diner and then when a select bunch end up running for it (led by the newly-bonded-in-fire V&W) they need to traverse a town full of fog and nightmares to find Melanie, the rest of the kids, and a way to escape

seafaring AU wherein Knives and Vash are selkies and Knives stole his own twin's skin and keeps Vash imprisoned in the belly of his infamous Flying Dutchman-style ghost ship called the Ark. Wolfwood died at sea and was offered a soul-indenture deal as crew for the Ark and now he's the assistant ships' cook and has all sorts of religious trauma. he finds a mysterious naked, scarred man in the bilge and slowly unfolds the truth and vows to steal back Vash's skin, even knowing that he himself can never leave the Ark.

beauty and the beast AU with uncanny monster Vash in a thorned-in castle... parts of this ended up in my big bang fic

fae court AU where Vash and Knives are the summer & winter, seelie & unseelie double faces of the same entity, who maybe split themselves in half during (or in reaction to) a past trauma? (some of the aesthetic of this made it to the BB fic)

a fantasy prince!Vash & knight!Wolfwood AU in which the twins are supposedly the children of the late princess Rem and her husband Alex but actually they were secretly foundlings of unknown origin and it's a scandal for them to be claimed as royalty. meanwhile the king's master alchemist is doing some human experimentation bullshit on the downlow and is stealing scullery kids and orphans who muck the stables for pennies or whatever, and doing Eye of Michael nonsense to them. Wolfwood is such a success that he's quietly slipped back into palace life as a page, to act as a closed mouth and open ears to the affairs of nobles etc. He and Vash are age peers and end up running into each other and becoming fast friends over years; meanwhile Knives is uncovering the corruption in the castle and instead of reporting it, he's taking it over. this one would for real for real be way too long for me to ever write, because I was daydreaming that it would go on for like, multiple action set pieces and changes of status quo, and several decades of Vash & WW's lives, and eventually Knives would kill the king and take over, and V & WW would be the outlaw & his rogue knight, and yadda yadda yadda it's a 450K fanfic that I want to read but not write

music scene AU in which WW is stage crew and Vash is the reclusive identical twin of famous punk/glam rocker Knives (stage name), and WW finds the person he thinks is the talent wandering lost backstage and is like these goddamn stars always so goddamn high, ugh, until he chases Vash down and Vash is like ohhh no I'm just back here because my brother invited me ahaha... hi you're cute... IDK, this could be long or it could just be a short PWP of vashwood hooking up in the green room, lol

direct Green Knight AU in which Wolfwood is the fledgling knight starved for praise who doesn't actually like violence and prefers softness and comfort, but when he perceives his masculinity as being tested he goes all-in on violence and does the classic thing of beheading the Green Knight in the contest of blows. and then he goes on his journey etc etc and encounters Lord Bertilak, who would be Vash, and they play the game of exchanges of gifts, except in this version when the lady of the house gives WW a sexual favor he doesn't cheap out like the movie did and not have Dev Patel give Joel Edgerton a handjob! it was right there! come on, we were robbed! ahem. uh. yeah. a lot of this ended up in my BB fic also. XD

like a Mr & Mrs Smith comedy AU in which Vash and Wolfwood both are either criminals or one is a criminal and one is an undercover operative and they're both trying to blow the whistle on Knives' crime ring without letting each other get wind of what they're doing and it plays out for way too long before they finally realize they were doing the same thing the whole time

I did the research for this whole fuckin thing set in 1814 England of Vash having just come home from losing an arm in the Napoleonic Wars and becoming friends with the local Anglican priest who takes his confessions i.e. is just the only person he can talk to through his PTSD and also both of them agonizingly realizing that they're queer and into each other... and after doing all this research I was like, what the fuck am I doing, I don't even really like historical dramas.

Great Fall happens on a water planet??? (I mean everyone's gotta wish they could do an alternate-biome-Trigun, right? I've seen the ice planet AU art out there which is PHENOMENAL)

Vash is a high school chemistry teacher who pranks his students at least once a semester by pretending to blow up his arm, Wolfwood is a special education teacher, Milly's the coach (of everything), Meryl's the haggard and perpetually harassed economics teacher, the climax of the plot is prom and V&W goofily act out the proms of their own they never got to go to, and they fuck in a limo, idk. this one's a comedy

I think about AU ideas a normal amount

#sf writes #most of these are drawn from an AU scratchpad i had for a while #and they're mostly vashwood just because i was looking at a vashwood prompt list at the time #but like ill be real. they could all be polygun or mashwood and i'd still be into it #and this isn't counting the scraps of shorter ideas that come to me #since you asked about the fics that are just too damn long for me to have the energy to sit and write #I used to not like AUs so much... idk what happened to me... i love them now #shiromouse #asks #thank you for the question! and for listening to me ramble!

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stinkybreath · 4 months

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hello

do you trust me to recommend you some books

I read ~170 this year and here’s reviews of my top ten, written for fb and crossposted under the cut in case you’re interested

1: Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

-I know it’s not obvious from the way I conduct myself here, but I have a very large vocabulary. I was a kid who read the dictionary and also any thesaurus I had access to. So, that said, consider how much it means to me personally that this book taught me 30-50 new words. This isn’t a huge part of the reason I loved this book, but it is a very impressive fact about it that I think will grab the attention of people who might otherwise not read it. This book changed the way I read, the way I think about literature, and the way I evaluate what I have previously read. It’s offensive to me that I lived 30 years as an avid reader and culture sponge without hearing about this book. I cannot recommend it enough. I give it top spot on this list for a very good reason. I’d like to avoid spoiling any of the plot because while I called the twist easily, discovery of each point was so delightful that I want you to have that same experience.

2: Cockatiel x Chameleon by Bavitz

-You all have plenty of experience with me recommending works of fiction published online in formats that deter most readers. This is a normal Najwa activity. I know how it sounds and I know, therefore, that this plea will go more or less unheard, but I BEG you. Look past the fact this was published on AO3. This is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read, period. I mentioned in my worst of how much it bothers me that most writers can’t plausibly write about the internet. This book is the FUCKING ZENITH of writing about being online. It is the absolute peak and I will be shocked if I ever encounter another work that overtakes it. This is a book about people who are so strange they are barely human, but in ways that will be instantly familiar, intimately true, to those of us who grew up on the internet. There is violence and abuse and love and beauty and Chatroulette. There is art and gore and exploration of identity and apocalypse. There is fucking POSTING.

3: Serious Weakness by Porpentine

-Charity Heartscape Porpentine is one of our greatest living authors, opinions of snide Twitter users notwithstanding. I am an evangelist for her Twine game poetry because it is so singular and so affecting. Even a decade on, I can play through Their Angelical Understanding and feel freshly stabbed in the gut. Imagine the thrill I felt when she posted about her completed novel. I would (strongly) recommend this even to people who (somehow) bounced off her games, because her prose style is very distinct from the voice those are in (yet still recognizable). This is an incredibly violent, sick, stomach-turning, difficult, ugly, terrifying book. It’s also ultimately asking the reader a question about love and compassion. If you are sensitive to any trigger in written word about any violent action one person can do to another, skip this book, but if you feel like you have the strength, give her the nine bucks or whatever that she’s asking and devour it like I did. A hook for you: our protagonist has a chance meeting with an embodiment of pain. What follows includes torture, gender, climate disaster, and Columbine. Gorgeous. This book almost convinced me to start doing video essays so I could explain to people the incredible factors at play in it.

4: Negative Space by BR Yeager

-I have been trying to read this book for free for so long that I broke my streak and paid actual money for it. It was one of the better purchases I made all year. Thanks to finally reading some Stephen King this year I now have the requisite foundation to see how heavily his style inspired Yeager in this book, but I would die on the hill defending my position that Yeager does King better than King ever did. There is evil seeping out between the lines of this book. Have you ever had a nightmare that made you feel doomed the entire next day? Have you ever felt you were trapped in your shitty, dying home town? Have you ever been seduced by the excitement of activities that you know might actually kill you? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and looked at your own dark reflection? Go back to the deepest point of your teenage depression here.

5: We Who Are About to by Joanna Russ

-One of the shortest entries on this list and so one of the easiest sells, but it is just as full of meaning as any other that made the cut. There is so much implied and unsaid about this protagonist. She feels whole, like this is the last chunk of chapters in a series centered on her, but she represents something universal. She is one member of a group from a crash-landed spaceship, a group small enough in numbers that there’s no way for humanity to last on this planet more than one more generation. Any attempts to do even that are so plainly cruel and self-deluding that she wants no part of them, but the others with her don’t see it the same way. Her story is womanhood under patriarchy, it is life and death, it is self-determination. Brutal. I read this at the airport and cried in public.

6: Carrie by Stephen King

-As much as I hate to say it, I gotta hand it to Uncle Steve (or really to Tabitha). This book very nearly justifies the rest of his career on its own. I thought had picked up most of it from cultural osmosis, but there was a truly shocking depth that I couldn’t have found without experiencing it firsthand. Maybe it’s funny to use this word here, but this book is humanist and compassionate and sincere in a way that King never finds again, particularly with the women he writes. Carrie is so vivid that I felt a protective instinct for her throughout the book even though I knew she was about to discover her own power. She reflects parts of me about as well as Lindqvist did in Little Star, which is the work of art that is THE most personal to me. A classic for a fucking reason.

7: The Doloriad by Missouri Williams

-This year, lots of the books that I read had strange echoes of each other. In this, I can pick out shades of Carrie, of Camp Concentration, of We Who Are About To, and even of Serious Weakness. Rarely if ever are these references by each author, but it has enriched my experience by having unofficial interlocking intertexts for all of them. This book has been very divisive with reviewers, and I understand why, because it is cruel and the prose is extremely stylistic. This is somewhat experimental and fully literary and sincerely philosophical. I get it. Not for everyone. But it was for me. A clan of inbreds at the end of the world with their eyes on their scapegoat, nonverbal and disabled Dolores. It shocked me and it challenged me and I loved it.

8: The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories by Sam Pink

-These short stories did the exact opposite of the thing that pissed me off about The Florida Project. These are about people who are varying degrees of sympathetic but the same degree of desperately, penny-scrapingly working poor. The easy pull quote is “unflinching,” because it turns an eye on very ugly parts of real life for so many of us. I think people who grew up middle class will find some voyeuristic, prurient pleasure in these stories, but they’re not written for you. They’re written for us, the people who have lived this way.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman 9

-I don’t need to tell you how great this book is, because the whole of booktok has told you this all year. Instead, what I will say is that it is much stranger and less tidy than you’re imagining when you hear the blurb. It’s a short read and it is one of the few times I haven’t regretted following booktok’s advice.

Only Lovers Left Alive by Dave Wallis 10

-This barely squeaked onto this year’s best of, because I started it before 2022 ended and finished it early in the new year. As I read it, especially in the first 20% of the book, I was confused as to how it ended up on my TBR. But toward the end, and throughout the year as I’ve continued to think about it, I understand more instinctively than intellectually that this is a remarkable work. A short synopsis: in the 80s in the UK, there is an epidemic of suicide, but only by adults. The teens left behind forge their own path.

#Porpentine #Bavitz #Thomas Disch #Dave Wallis #Sam pink #Stephen King #jacqueline harpman #Joanna Russ #Missouri Williams #br yeager #b. r. yeager #charity heartscape porpentine

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wordshaveteeth · 5 months

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My aim for this year was to read more books. I read twenty nine, which was a vast improvement on last year (I read nine). There’s only twenty eight listed because I forgot about Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne Mcconnell’s Pity The Reader. Sorry about that.

I tried to expand beyond my preferred genres, and made a concerted effort to read the recommendations given to me by friends and work colleagues. Nevertheless, a few of my own comfort reads made it on to the list.

Here they are! (There’s also a Q&A with myself under the cut)

The Best One

Metaphors We Live By - George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

I came to this book via two others. Philip Pullman in his nonfiction book Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling, referenced Mark Turner’s The Literary Mind, which in turn referred to Metaphors We Live By. It was an exercise in reverse-engineering, starting with Pullman’s perspective (whose style I greatly admire), and then working backwards to see what has informed his writing.

Metaphors We Live By helped me understand the importance of word choice, the messages we send through them, but also, how very wired our brains are for story-telling. It spoke of metaphor being fundamental to our conceptual system, not just as a poetic literary device. Whether the science is settled on this is irrelevant for me; it’s helped my writing immensely, and also been very useful in my day job. I just came away from it being so excited about language, life and brains.

The Surprising One

This Is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Firstly, I would never have picked this for myself. I don’t really read typical romance, and the idea of having to read love letters… ugh. I was so glad to find out from my book club it was less than 200 pages—I wouldn’t be wasting too much of my time.

But I think around page 30-40, something clicked and I was hooked on the intensity and—I don’t know—violence of the love between the two characters. The prose was quite abstract and there were a few new words I learnt, which is always exciting (‘apophenic as a haruspex’ comes to mind). And after, at book club, when I discovered the unusual way it was co-authored, the inventiveness of it left me feeling even more impressed.

The Not So Great One

Lucy By The Sea - Elizabeth Strout

I just did not connect with the main character at all, and there were a few sentences that irked me by the end of the book. If I recall, it was something like ‘What I remember about it was this:’

It was also the second book I’d read that touched on the subject of the pandemic, and my own experience of the pandemic coloured my response to the main character. I judged the hell out of her, in other words, and found her to be a bit of a rich, white idiot. I don’t have time for that.

The Best One About Writing

Steering The Craft: A 21st Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story - Ursula K. Le Guin

I honestly hadn’t heard of Le Guin until this year, so I read Wizard of Earthsea. And then my writing club set this as reading, and I just loved it. It’s more workshop and pragmatic (not a writing memoir, like Stephen King’s On Writing, or Lamott’s Bird By Bird), but I liked how accessible it was, and the exercises set at the end of each chapter (which I did not do but would like to with other people). Oh, I also loved the excerpts from other authors she used as examples to press home her points. They were great for context.

The One I Couldn’t Finish

The Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros

I read to chapter 4 of The Fourth Wing and I had to stop, and it was for an incredibly petty reason. It’s not a spoiler because this character very quickly dies and serves no other purpose other than to demonstrate the danger the main character Violet faces in trying to become a Dragon Rider. BUT… we see this poor guy getting hugged by his family as he leaves to start training (oh look how loved he is), then he pulls out a ring from underneath his shirt while in a queue and says so innocently, so completely unaware that he is a foil, that he and his fiancée will get married once he’s a Dragon Rider; how confident he is, so tall, and so strong, he is already halfway there. But oh wouldn’t you know it, he slips on the stone bridge and plummets to his death.

I think I was meant to feel a little bit sorry for him, or that maybe he was going to become Violet’s friend (she definitely needed one). But this guy was meant to be twenty years old. TWENTY. And engaged?

I am too old to trust the judgment of anyone who thinks getting married at twenty is a good idea. And the fact that Violet wasn’t thinking that made me question her judgment too.

It reminded me of every action movie ever involving soldiers: as soon as a side character mentions they have someone waiting for them back home—especially a baby they’ve never met—you know they’re going to die.

But… does this mean I’ll never try and read it again? No. I’ll just choose a whole bunch of other books before I look at it again.

#2023 books #2023 book review #books and reading #readblr #booklr #literature #too many authors to tag separately

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ceph-the-ghost-writer · 4 months

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For the last WIP you were working on! Or any you like~

WIZARD - Who is your favourite character in this WIP? Describe them!

KNIGHT - Pick one! Forbidden Love or Enemies-to-Lovers?

TREASURE - What is the best thing about the world of your WIP?

WITCH - What sparked the idea for this world?

@bloodlessheirbyjacques

Hello, @bloodlessheirbyjacques! Thanks for sending these in <3

WIZARD - Who is your favourite character in this WIP? Describe them!

Since I talked about Kinslayer last time, I'll rave about another character: Renato.

Renato Faria Dimas is the deuteragonist of Apophenia/Phagophobia. He was born at a time when the ocean devoured islands whole and invaded larger continents. He grew up on a container ship among other survivors of the break, his parents serving as harsh but relatively just rulers of the group.

As a teen, Renato and his parents became acquainted with a man named Cassius Mergus. Mergus was well connected and willing to help (given the favor was returned, of course). He took Renato under his wing much as he had Oleander, a girl who'd escaped from an evangelical death cult. Mergus gave them love and support in ways their own parents couldn't or wouldn't. When Renato figured out he was trans, it was Mergus who taught him how to tie a tie, style his hair, and, eventually, shave.

So, when Mergus revealed he was a bloodborn and the head of a secret organization that regulated the supernatural, Renato accepted that. Just as he and Ollie would accept the offer to join him as bloodborn agents, carrying out his orders. Mergus had been a father figure to them both, always showing benevolence and wisdom. So if those orders often involved violence and even killing, Renato swallowed his doubts and told himself it was necessary for a greater good.

After about a century, that justification has completely crumbled. Renato has realized what he truly is: a thug and assassin working for a smiling tyrant who manipulates others into doing the dirty, bloody work. Even though he knows he'll die in the attempt, Renato resolves to kill Mergus and thus destabilize the corrupt organization he's built.

Except he winds up meeting Isaac, the protagonist, and all his plans unravel from there. Instead of going out in a blaze of glory, Renato is confronted with the idea that he might just be taking the easy way out. That change and making amends might require showing up and putting in long-term, thankless effort. But it may also be worth it in the end. Maybe.

KNIGHT - Pick one! Forbidden Love or Enemies-to-Lovers?

I like how both tropes ask what the characters are willing to risk to be together, and what the consequences might be for it. But I love the changes, vulnerability, and growing respect involved in Enemies-to-Lovers especially.

TREASURE - What is the best thing about the world of your WIP?

That it isn't a dystopian or post-apocalyptic stereotype despite humanity suffering a series of cataclysms.

WITCH - What sparked the idea for this world?

I just thought it would be neat to see supernatural creatures and humans dealing with a slightly more futuristic world where magic is also making a comeback. I can't think of many fantasy stories where characters are dealing with the world transitioning through a paradigm shift--they usually happen after the Big Event, or end once the major change starts. Also, being a fan of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King might've had something to do with it.

#dysthanasia #answered asks #writeblr asks

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idontknowhowtodoor · 1 year

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Alright, here's what I've got for "emotional and maybe violent" games. All these are available on steam (or at least, used to be.)

Alan Wake - Play as an analog for Stephen King in a town that may or may not be cursed while you fight possessed townsfolk and search for your missing wife. More focused on the story than the action, but it's a pretty game, at least. Ignore the sequel. Remake coming...Eventually?

Bioshock Infinite - I'm certain you've already played this, I don't even know why I'm putting it on this list.

Carrion - Play as a flesh monster escaping from a secret underground lab. Consume humans for fun and to regain health and grow larger. Consume lab samples to gain new abilities. Metroid-style navigation that blocks off parts of the game until you have the requisite abilities. Light on the story, but big on horror violence. Published by Devolver Digital (so you know it's good).

Cry of Fear - Play as Simon, a student that's just trying to get home and survive the horror his town has turned into. Has a deeper meaning once you beat the game and get the whole story, but I never beat it, and can no longer run it. This game is older than my computer. Also has an additional DLC(?) called Afraid of Monsters, with co-op functionality.

Darkest Dungeon - Acclaimed dungeoncrawler turn-based strategy where you hire and control a team of "heroes" (aka mercenaries) to clear your late ancestor's estate from several different flavors of eldritch horrors leftover from his gruesome experimentation. Stellar voice acting by Wayne June. Make sure to pick up all the DLCs and the soundtrack! I'm annoyed that a bug won't let me play this anymore, but glad I at least got to beat it, first. Sequel available on EPIC Games, to be released on Steam...Eventually...

Dead Space 1 & 2 - You've already heard about it, so I don't need to tell you these games are violent as hell, with a pretty good story, actually. I'm not including the 3rd game or the 2023 remake because I haven't played them.

DEFCON - Real-time strategy inspired by 1980s cold war movies. Take control of one or more nation's nuclear arsenal and lay waste to your enemies before they scour you from existence. Emotional in a meta way - Actual studied have been done on this game and it's effect on people.

Doki Doki Literature Club - Don't let it's saccharine facade fool you, this game is an emotional roller-coaster with themes of existentialism. Still has an active fanbase, apparently, and it's free to play! The ending credits song is pretty good, too. May contain brief moments of poetry.

DUSK - One of the granddaddies of the Boomer Shooter Revival of the 2020s. Play as a nameless protagonist labeled DUSK Dude as you run and gun your way through 30-odd levels of blood-soaked rural Pennsylvania and beyond. Multiplayer is possible, but good luck finding any public games. Published by New Blood.

Duskers - Roomba-powered survival-exploration-real-time-strategy game where you control a number of drones to explore abandoned spaceships. Search the wrecks for resources to keep yourself and your drones alive and uncorrupted data to try and glean some information as to why you seem to be the last person in the universe. Oh...And watch out for the...Anomalies.

FAItH: The Unholy Trinity - Critically-acclaimed Atari-style horror game trilogy finally released in its entirety. Play as a priest in 1987 Connecticut as you set out to finish what you started a year ago, and gradually find yourself drawn into all the evil of the Satanic Panic. Published by New Blood.

Farcry 3 - Play as a college yuppie kidnapped by pirates on an island, rescued by the islanders, and use all the guns and drugs you can find to rescue your friends. Liberate the island one fort at a time, and uncover the secrets that have lain dormant within the jungle - And within yourself.

Gone Home - Relaxing walking simulator where you play as a college student just returned home, searching her parents' abandoned home for your sister. Fill in the story bit by bit through finding old documents and having brief auditory flashbacks. A story about growing up and discovering one's self. I haven't played this in a few years so this summary is just from memory. I intend to play it again soon.

Hotline Miami 1 & 2 - Top-down arcade-style massacre simulator. Play as a nameless person taking orders from mysterious voicemails and murdering buildings full of Russian mobsters while wearing animal masks. Sequel adds more of the same, but this time with an actual story, additional characters, and an included comic book. Amazing soundtrack. Published by Devolver Digital.

Inscryption - Meta card-based strategy game. Uncover the secrets behind a mysterious floppy disk found in the woods. Don't want to spoil anything, but it's about 3x bigger than it initially appears. Created by Daniel Mullens. Great for people who enjoy tabletop games. Fantastic ambiance. Don't google it or you'll spoil the whole game.

Killing Floor 2 - Great game, but I'm bitter that I can't run it on my computer anymore, so I won't spend too much time writing about it. So-op first-person wave-based-shooter. Ruthlessly French, at times.

Lakeview Valley - Serial killer simulator where you try to get away scot-free with murdering a whole goddamn town full of people. I got a bad ending, last time I played, and I was too bitter to go back and try for a better one. Can be pretty thrilling, trying to get away with each and every kill. Alternately, you could not murder anyone and just be a good neighbor. Whatever.

Manhunt - Extremely contentious and often banned stealth-'em-up murder game. Play as an "exonerated" death row inmate and earn your freedom as a snuff film star by murdering every single goddamn person you come across in one of 3 increasingly gruesome ways per weapon. Gunplay is a little...Crap. Personally, I prefer the sequel, but you can only get Manhunt 2 on Wii, and all the executions are "censored." Manhunt 1 on Steam is good to go, though (aside from an easily fixed bug in the first level.) Very violent. Story's alright. Published by Rockstar back when they had some balls.

Mother Russia Bleeds - Krokodil-fueled sidescrolling beat-'em-up that takes place during the Russian Revolution (I don't know which one). Gameplay is...Alright. Probably best played with a controller, and very violent. Co-op multiplayer is couch-style ONLY, so don't expect to get any help from your online friends list. Published by Devolver Digital. Reviewed by Boris.

Omen Exitio: Plague - Text-based visual(?) novel that puts you into the shoes of an 18th(?) century doctor on his adventures as he investigates a mysterious disease cropping up around the world, as well as the cult that seems to be after him. Lovecraftian themes, and surprisingly enjoyable. I recommend you Min/Max whatever stats you pick. There's been a free DLC released, but I haven't played it. Has its emotional parts; I wouldn't mind having this as a regular book.

Postal 2 - Play as a perfectly sane and normal Dude in Paradise, Arizona as he goes about his chores throughout the course of a week. First-person shooter (or not, if you're a tryhard) that never takes itself seriously in the slightest. Peak mid-2000s "deliberately offensive" humor. Includes free "Apocalypse Weekend" DLC. Developers recommend players skip Postal 3 and go straight to Postal 4, for a sequel (neither of which have I played, unfortunately).

Project Zomboid - Arguably the best and more realistic zombie apocalypse game in existence at present. Play as...Well, whoever you want, trying (you will fail) to survive the zombie apocalypse. There is no mystery, there is no story, there is no escape. This is how you die. The only thing that matters is how long that takes and how many Steam Workshop mods you can run at once without breaking the game entirely. Build 42 to be released soon!

Prototype - Play as Alex Mercer, a dude who doesn't remember shit about shit but has woken up with some gnarly shapeshifting superpowers at the beginning of a massive biological outbreak. Use your powers to stealth and murder your way toward understanding the truth as to what's going on and what happened to you. Gain additional tidbits of lore by literally eating people's brains. Fun and tasty! 1 or 2 sequels released, but I haven't played them.

The Forest - Canadian wilderness survival simulator. Survive a plane crash and get repeatedly assaulted by the roving bands of cave-dwelling cannibals and their monstrous allies. Search for your son and uncover the truth as to the horrors that took place on the peninsula. Sequel to be released soon!

The Miskatonic - Cute little visual novel inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Not violent at all, but deals massive emotional damage when you learn that the creator has severed all ties with the project and any hope of a sequel. Contains brief female nudity and some written innuendo. I think I used to follow this developer on DeviantArt?

The Walking Dead Season 1 & 2 - Story-driven game that takes place in the universe of but is separate from the story of the titular show and graphic novel. Face the trials and tribulations that come with the collapse of civilization during the zombie apocalypse, and adopt (and later play as) a kid as you try to keep her and yourself alive. Decisions have lasting effects that extend even between games. Can get very emotional, at times.

ULTRAKILL - Classic blood-soaked boomer shooter that is still being worked on today! Play as a robot designated V1 in a world where humanity is dead, blood is fuel, and Hell is full. Delve through an interpretation of Dante's Inferno on a mission to quench your insatiable thirst for blood from all the sinners residing there. Extremely creative level design, addictive gameplay, and the community is full of femboys? extremely active, even so far as one of the voice actors regularly engaging with streams and memes in character! Story is there, but not super important, if it doesn't matter to you. Max0r has done 2 videos so far reviewing the game, much to the delight of the community. Published by New Blood.

That's all I got, for now. I can make more recommendations, if you're looking for other specific kinda of games, but I'm limited by what I own and can play.

GGRR GRRR BITE BITE YES YES YES

#.askbox shenanigans #aBSOLUTELY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR #THE FAITH TRILOGY IS SO GOOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE IT #also i have Not played bioshock #however i have it and i know its good because a friend of mine played it and i got to watch bHJVBHDS

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mitchelldailygames · 4 months

Text

2023 Book Round-Up

This is going to be a quick list of some of my favorite books that I read this year. These aren’t books that necessarily came out in 2023 and they’re not in any particular order.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone OK, this one is in a particular order. It’s my favorite. I read this book twice this year, the first time based on the recommendation of that tweet a lot of people saw. I found it beautiful, and as someone who wants to eventually publish novels, very inspiring. The application of the epistolary style to its sci-fi concept (it is actually set in a time war) made for a compelling and unique feel to the book. The prose were absolutely gorgeous. The way the characters were human and the way they were inhuman was perfect. All of it got me thinking about how my own writing could reach further than I'd considered before.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir I also read and really enjoyed Nona the Ninth this year, but Harrow was my favorite. The mystery of it all, the intense necromancer action, and the angst all adds up to the perfect Locked Tomb book. And the payoff at the end is so good.

On the Beach by Nevil Shute I read this after watching Jacob Geller’s Art in the Pre-Apocalypse video, and this is the write up that will end up feeling the least like a recommendation. This book messed me up. I read it while fall was tumbling towards winter in the often dreary Pacific Northwest (of the US). This book made me feel like the world was ending. I became immersed in the state of living life while the end drifted closer to the point I kind of started to believe it in real life. I certainly found it compelling in its restrained doom.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers This one is also in a particular order because I read it right after On the Beach and it plucked me right out of my funk. Where the previous book left me feeling like precious few moments were slipping away from me, A Psalm for the Wild-Built said it was OK to just be. This is a beautiful solar punk novella as is its sequel, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. It presents a possibility for a better world while giving a glimpse into the pathways we can take as individuals to move towards something better (while acknowledging that big changes need to take place on a macro level).

The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson I tried reading this a long time ago because I was a fan of Gibson’s cyberpunk books and couldn’t get into it. I didn’t have that problem this year. Its steampunk London after the century-early arrival at the computer was very compelling. It fell prey to some tropes I’m not a huge fan of, namely that people in crisis will quickly resort to chaos and violence, but overall it was a story and setting that kept me reading all the way through this time.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer What a book! I’m currently reading Authority, and I love this brand of weird sci-fi/horror. I watched the movie forever ago, but really enjoyed (and am enjoying) the story that's told in the books. The unraveling of the group and of the biologist was a great read, and it was fun to see cosmic horror in the modern age done really well. The mystery of it all was really the hook of the book, and the things it leaves unanswered was really fitting for the story.

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King I finished the Dark Tower series this year, but this was my favorite. The doombot bad guys, the way it expanded on the lore, and the gunslinger action were all really cool. The characters were all operating at their peaks in this book, while dealing with some deep, dark secrets, and it felt like it held the best of all the things the series has to offer.

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt What a harrowing, powerful, complicated haunted house story this is. I will say this book is not for the faint of heart (and comes with trigger warnings at the beginning of the book), but I was left at the end of the story with the distinct feeling I had read something that would stick with me for a long, long time. It gets into the complicated ways identities interact and the way fascism breeds in societies and individual hearts. There are long sections that slip into disturbing rambles that become less coherent as they go on, which is perfect within the tone of the book. The things that haunt the characters throughout the story add and help give traction to all of these other pieces.

#books #this is how you lose the time war #the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #dark tower #southern reach trilogy #monk and robot #tell me i'm worthless

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theplanetprince · 2 years

Text

Pick Your Poison || Invisobang 2022

Fic: AO3 || FNN

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Rating: Teens and Up

Word Count (approx): 38k~

Chapters: 5/5

Relationships:

Valerie Gray/Wes Weston (implied, one-sided)

Danny Fenton & Wes Weston

Dash Baxter & Wes Weston

Jazz Fenton & Danny Fenton

Characters:

Wes Weston

Kyle Weston

Valerie Gray

Dash Baxter

Danny Fenton

Jazz Fenton

Penelope Spectra

Additional Tags: Horror, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Morally Ambiguous Character, Poisoning, Poison, Mental Health Issues, Therapy, Really Bad Therapy, Paranoia, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Psychological Horror, Angst, Teenagers, Teen Angst, Gaslighting, Violence, High School, Bullying, One Shot, Blood and Injury, Animal Death, Origin Story, Not Fanon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Anxiety, Separation Anxiety, Family Drama, Family Feels, Villains, Bastardization Arc, Missing Persons, Danny Fenton is a Little Shit, Pretentious, Obsessive Behavior, Feral Behavior, Inspired by Music, Based on a The Front Bottoms Song, Song: I Ran (So Far Away) (A Flock of Seagulls), Inspired by Stephen King's IT, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Song: Voodoo Magic (The Front Bottoms), Attempted Murder, Assault

Fic Summary: Grief has a way of changing people. Wes Weston's older brother going missing during the haunted house fire last year had changed him. His therapist would agree. Change isn't always for the better.

What hasn't changed are the countless questions Wesley was left with. Though some had more puzzling answers but answers nonetheless...

Could you kill a ghost?

And could Wes get away with it?

Author's Note: Thank you all to the lovely people who host @invisobang and who let me come back this year. I also wish to thank my lovely fic partner for this year @valpal5117 / @valpal5117-art! Go check out the artwork they've done for this piece, as well as everything else they post bc it's fantastic. I brought you all something a little different from my usual style, something a bit darker and a bit more spooky since the season is arriving. It's my first time writing Wes Weston, and I hope I've done this fan character some justice. Like last year I've included the link to my fic as well as the first chapter under the read more. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it! Thanks again! -Voorhees 🤟

Every morning Kyle would check the rat traps in the basement for his Dad. It wasn’t that he had strong feelings for the creatures, but he still winced at the idea of killing the poor things. It bothered him, but you get used to it, y’know? It wasn’t like he was a vegan or, god forbid, an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian. But death seemed so… permanent, for lack of a better word. It was such a severe punishment for the crime of just existing in a hostile environment.

Then again, this is Amity Park. Death didn’t seem to stick here.

It had been more than a year or so since they moved here, and with every passing minute, it felt like an eternity longer. Kyle, like any child, was apprehensive about transition, but when his father said they wouldn’t have to move again after their resettlement to Amity Park… he was more receptive to it.

But then again, it’s Amity fucking Park. It had this habit of sucking all the good out. As soon as you step into the county boundary, it's like you forfeit all rights to happiness.

At the bottom of the first-floor stairs, the sixth-grader had sleepily pulled on his socks. He hated going down there. The concrete floor was always so cold. It was like the ice resting on Lake Eerie. It was freezing and— it’d kill someone in this house to break out the broom. Rocks and shards of debris would lodge into his heel, and the youngest Weston would limp around the house. Kyle’s jaw popped as he yawned. The boy organized his choppy red hair into its natural cowlick before stuffing it into his ball cap. He got to his feet and shuffled towards the back of the house. The stairs creaked under his weight as he descended. The basement door caught a gust of wind and slammed against the wall, sending vibrations through the house.

Damn, I hope I didn’t crack the wall.

There was no arm rail for the stairs because this architectural nightmare was built before common sense. Kyle turned his head back from the light of the first floor, back into the blackness of the basement. He didn’t want to upset his Dad again.

See, this first year hadn’t been smooth sailing, if you managed to guess. Kyle’s brothers weren’t as ‘go-with-the-flow’ with the move. Or anything that came after. Kyle didn’t believe in conflict. He was the youngest; he was the baby of the family. He was the one who got the pat on the head for every single achievement; before, inevitably, the conversation shifted. It wasn’t his job to rock the boat. It was his job to be a good student, get the garbage out, and of course…

Go into the creepy-ass basement to check for rats that may or may not exist.

See, Wes was the first one to see the rats. Or, more accurately, he saw the damage the rats did. Some chewed and frayed wires in the power box—things of that nature.

…Wesley was a lot to unpack. Some would say.

He was high-strung, had trouble letting things go, and, oh yeah, he kept seeing things that didn’t exist. That was the concerning part. At first, everyone wanted to shrug it off as a 'middle child' thing. That's before he started saying his classmates were… dead. Wes said one of his classmates had been replaced with a ghost. Then there were the weird phone calls at all hours of the night. The obsession with short radios and the police scanners that would buzz and burst to life randomly with noise.

That’s what led to Kyle and Easton being dropped off at practices and games, while every other Thursday, they had to wave off their brother Wes in the parking lot of a therapist's office. Kyle had only been inside that building once. It didn’t smell like how a doctor’s office should, sterile, harsh, and chemical. Instead, it vaguely had the stench of coffee and cigarettes and was… overwhelmingly stale. It wasn’t a very ventilated place. There were hardly any windows except those in the private rooms where Wes would allegedly spend his allotted hour staring blankly out like he was in The Shawshank Redemption— effectively burning their father’s money.

The shrink— or rather, Ms Penelope, seemed really nice. Teetering on the edge of overkill. Kyle understood why his older brother would be reluctant to share anything with someone who appeared to be trying too hard to seem trustworthy rather than proving it. She didn’t seem too interested in Kyle’s issues per se; they spent their introductory session playing all manner of board games. Her office was plush. The couch was padded arm to arm with throw pillows, the kind with the fur on them. Not that the sixth-grader could get comfortable anyway. It may not have smelled like a regular doctor's office, but it sure was cold like one. What little hair he had on his arms stood on end with the chill.

Kyle spent most of his appointment hunched over the coffee table, trying to rationalize in his head which colored 'Sorry!' pawn meant he had the least amount of mental disturbances. The idea behind the practice was to become emotionally vulnerable, but often that feeling overlapped with being completely exposed. Not that the middle schooler had anything to hide. Nothing out of the ordinary for a kid his age.

Kyle would argue that he was the most well-adjusted in the family, including the two adults, in terms of who needed therapy and who didn't. Ms Penelope agreed and thought Kyle was quite mature beyond his years. However, that wasn’t the thing that stood out the most about that first and last session. Maybe it was something in his mannerisms or when Wes was brought up— perhaps it was what Kyle didn’t say.

Penelope seemed to believe that Kyle was developing the early stages of SAD. Separation Anxiety Disorder. She said it was completely natural, given what he’s been through. Kyle didn’t like to be alone. Who did? What shocked him was that he didn’t refuse. There was no initial denial when the shrink laid it out like that. With her soft and educated voice, she had smoothed out her red pencil skirt, and lowered her cat-eye glasses to the bridge of her upturned nose. She just said it without any preamble; no fanfare at all.

Who isn't anxious these days? In this economy? Have you seen where they live?

Penelope had deduced effortlessly that Kyle used his humor to distance himself from his fear. The facade that took him twelve years to craft had been pierced.

In even less time, she had come to the conclusion that the trigger for Kyle’s anxiety was… Wes.

At once, Kyle had leaped to his older brother’s defense. Saying that, while Kyle may have been a bit… stressed , for lack of a less clinical term, Wes would have never done anything intentionally.

That’s where she stopped him, her pen coming to a halt on her yellow notebook. Penelope dotted the end of her last sentence. Her eyes found him, then the cozy clutter of the office fell away. The maternal cadence dissolved into something cold and purely analytical.

She told him, ‘The path to hell is paved with good intentions.’

Every morning Kyle would check the rat traps in the basement.

The wooden stairs exhaled—Groaning with each step the youngest Weston landed. The water heater churned ominously. The grey floors were warped with age and stained with damage from times long gone. Kyle carefully found his way to the bottom and glanced up from his feet. He saw his brother now. Wes was hunched over the rat traps. He had one of his freckled hands inside like he was digging something out of it.

Kyle cocked his head, still blurry with sleep, rubbing his eyes, “What’re you doin’?”

Startling, Wes didn’t drop the metal box. Instead, the elder brother froze and stared up at his younger with bloodshot eyes. He didn’t answer right away.

Clearing his throat, Wesley pulled his fist out of the plastic box. He explained, “I thought I’d check the traps for you. I know it's… it’s kinda gross.”

Kyle let go of a sigh he didn’t know he was holding. He’d rather not look at something that small being dead. He asked, “Did we get’em this time?”

Hesitant to answer, the elder moved the now closed box into the trash, “Ye-yeah. We did.”

“Thank god.” Kyle scratched his forehead nervously, “Well, I mean, it sucks that it’s dead-dead, but…”

Standing, Wes clapped a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, “It's just nature. Don’t feel too bad about it, ‘kay? If it wasn’t us, then it’d be a cat later or somethin’ else. They were already dead when they walked in here.”

“I guess…” Kyle begrudged and leaned into his brother’s hand, taking him wholly at his word. It was effortless to believe him. Wes had a way with words. Y'know that was his nickname when they were younger; Wesley the wise. Then there was Kyle the kind, Easton the earnest, and Clay…

Kyle winced. They weren’t supposed to talk about Clay.

Awkwardly, the older turned and stuffed something into his backpack before zipping it up, “Hey, don’t get too bummed out, alright? It's still kind of early, so now you have extra time to stop by the corner store and get some doughnuts for breakfast.” He threw his bag over his shoulder, “Doesn’t that sound good?”

Kyle rubbed his arms, sniffling, “Uh, yeah… chocolate milk with a maple bar… what’re you gonna get?”

Mirroring his younger brother’s body language, Wes shook his head, “You can go on ahead of me; you're old enough.”

“But Dad says—”

Wesley cut him off, “What Dad doesn't know won’t kill him.” He extended his pinkie, “I promise.”

Taking a step forward, Kyle wrapped his pinkie around his older brother’s; he nodded, “Alright. I’ll walk to school by myself.”

“Get a move on! I wanna hear all about your solo excursions when I pick you up!” Wes coaxed his brother up the stairs and out of the basement, “Talk to some cute girls, put in a good word for me.”

The conversation struck Kyle as odd. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on why. Maybe because Wes, for once, didn’t have to be dragged out of bed by his ankles. He seemed motivated.

Then there was the second fact: Wes basically told him everything he wanted to hear. This wasn’t a conversation but the facsimile of one. Like there was a cue card Wes was reading just behind Kyle’s head. Somewhere out there, the same audience that got their kicks from Full House would be cracking up about this.

He was pretending to be okay.

Like with every rehearsed motion, the elder was telegraphing silently, ‘Look! Look at me! Look at how good I am! Aren’t I fixed now? Aren’t you proud of me?’

There was something quiet about his desperation to be accepted back into the flock. The family didn’t like to acknowledge their blackest sheep. It was almost like an unspoken rule. Wes’ appointments and his antics were written off and thrown under a huge rug. Less like he was a young adult approaching college and more like a precocious toddler or a rambunctious family pet that was resistant to discipline. After all, both of those options bite people unprovoked.

Kyle could only wince through a smile. What was he supposed to do? He was just a kid, and as life liked to remind him at a near-constant pace— there was very little someone his age could contribute. So, he stays out of the way. What else could he do?

“Uh…” He asked once more, knowing he wouldn’t enjoy the answer, “Are— Are you sure?”

Wes silently tilted his head. He didn’t understand the rising fear in his younger brother’s voice.

Kyle clarified, “Are you sure you don’t want to walk together?”

“Don’t sweat it, bud. I won’t be late.”

That was the furthest thing from what Kyle was worried about.

#wes weston #kyle weston #wesley weston #valerie gray #phic #danny phantom #dp #fic #horror #invisobang #invisobang 2022 #minibang

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wiihtigo · 2 years

Note

youre doing gods work w the boostle list i stg. once that drops its OVER for me. eithet that or ill just hyperfix rlly hard for a week then forget ab it. well see. is there any other dc shit youd rec or whatever while were at it.

MARTY my friend marty is doing gods work theyre helping me a lot rn remembering which specific issues of other comics they show up in before we get to the big big stuff like countdown

as for other dc stuff id rec....Well i recently finishing reading the 80s (and 60s) doom patrol comic and enjoyed it very much! im also watching the tv show and its good but the episodes are like an hour long so its like a Task to sit down and focus on. Im only like a handful of episodes in

I did not fucking care for like the first 20 issues of doom patrol 1987 and almost dropped it until i reached the grant morrison run and it was instantly so good i couldnt stop reading. Ive said this to my friends before but i would say its comparable to the works of stephen king in both the good and the bad ways. It was a good comic in the same way "It" was a good book

The 60s one is fine and i enjoyed it (it has rita! but so does the tv show so if you want to see her but dont want to read a 60s comic you can watch her there) but if youre in it for the surreal really weird storylines you mightve heard rumors of from dp the 80s run is where it all begins. honest to god id say just skip the issues until grant morrison takes over theyre so BORINGGGGG. IN MY OPINION

hm what else have i been reading OH. YOUNG JUSTICE 1998! i recently finished this one as well i dont know why it took me so long it was only 55 issues but it was SOOOOOO GOOD. i do not fucking like the young justice cartoon this comic is the superior yj media i mean just compare yj 98s kon (cool leather jacket. gay earring. undercut. tiny shades. TWO belts) to the tv shows kon (just a t shirt and jeans. ugly haircut. lame. stupid. ugly. die. Straight)

K*N -> THE COOLER KON EL

cant rec this comic enough mostly out of spite for the fact that when most people think of young justice they think of the swagless cartoon and not this beautiful team of teens. For one, the kids actually act like teens in the comic and not young adults having stupid relationship drama. Theyre sweet and stupid and care about eachother and the storylines are really thoughtful and opinionated. a lot of what im saying is regurgitated from things my much more eloquent friend monty has said about yj but since reading it for myself and now knowing firsthand i cant agree more. There was a really awesome story involving arrowette (cissie king jones) about a school shooting and gun violence. a lot of modern comics take the (pussy) centrist route when dealing with big controversies like this but they literally look to the camera and say GUN CONTROL **PLEASE!!!!!!!!**. in an ealier issue theres this funny moment where bart (impulse) zips away to stop some hunters from killing a deer and kon (superboy) is like did you really violate their AMERICAN right to shoot guns? AWESOME!!!!!!!!

also its just earnestly really really really funny. it has that sam and max style of humor which is why i think i loved it so much.

cant sing enough praises for this comic. Also in the yj show they had dick grayson as the robin for the first season? and wally? why do you hate tim drake and bart allen that much. tim kon and bart are a package deal dont separate them you bitch!

umm well that was only 2 comics i ended up recomending but i talked a lot about yj sooooo. there you go

#asks

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casual-eumetazoa · 1 year

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Finished a literary horror novel, “The Only Good Indians” by Stephen Graham Jones yesterday - disturbing, upsetting, perplexing, gory, and gruesome - 9/10. I’m really getting into horror as a genre this year and I’m so surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. I guess it’s because finding horror books that aren’t Stephen King or Lovecraft in a bookshop is almost impossible (in my city at least) so I haven’t paid much attention to it. This year so far I’ve watched a bunch of old classic horror movies, gotten through a bunch of (mostly indie) horror games and now have finished another horror novel (I think 3rd or 4th this year, I’m not sure). And I’ve realized that the novel I’m writing is horror more than it is sci-fi so there’s that.

Anyway, “The Only Good Indians” is about regret, revenge, the consequences of disregarding your culture and roots, the conflict between nature and humans, and breaking the cycles of violence. The voice/writing style is superb. In the first half the plot and pacing leans much more towards literary than horror but the setup is worth it. Big trigger warning for animal death (I barely got through it but I’m glad I did).

Idk what to read next. I have 3 books that I bought since I started this one (2 because they were discounted to like 3 dollars on kindle, and one because I was at a small local con and there were a bunch of self-pub writers there so i had to check their stuff out). As usual I’m not in the mood for either one of those :) The struggles of being a mood reader,,,

#readblr #bookblr #books #horror

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caspermhahn · 2 years

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Are you sure you wouldn't like to run? A game of tag, perhaps? All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ― Stephen King, The Shining

tw: blood, suggestive violence, drug mention, hallucinations, weapon mentions: @marcellabelanades, the hahn family, unknown sire

Hours had passed— or maybe just moments, since he and Marcella had split away from the grand ballroom to find themselves astray in the garden’s overgrowth. A usual occurrence when it came to the couple, who would often bid an Irish goodbye to feel as though they were alone among his family’s woodland edged property. So much of the masquerade had brought up those memories as they waltzed, the swamplands being their native soil and was a place the two had not just met but blossomed into more. Bittersweet, a majority of them felt that way as his past had been tethered to his witchcraft and the necromancer’s own. Along with his family and sometimes found that he now missed the things he would then drag his feet about. Though Casper had discovered quite a bit of silver-lining in all of it, the transition and new patterns he forged, and the visage of the faerie realm and new ethos were starting to rest in the daily habits of Rome.

But the twilight of the night sky, brilliant shades of pinks and purples that faded into the mixed blues, was more than a pleasant distraction as the reflection bounced onto his partner’s eyes. Despite all the curveballs that kept flying towards the recently changed vampire, he’d remained optimistic, and showed that rose-tinted outlook in the curvature of his lips before gently planting them on hers. There was never a need to say anything, Casper had been infatuated with the witch since the moment he saw her picking mushrooms on his family's property. He’d thought at first she was an apparition, spirits were known to gravitate towards the abundance of magic surrounding his home or inhabit the local bayou just behind. Then she revealed her name and even his mother had to do a double-take, though that might have been the official moment Angeline attached herself to the witch who currently harbored herself in the thickets and tall grasses. Deathless, undying, everlasting. Maybe those would have been the appropriate words if they were at all needed, masks soon abandoned along with the extravagant attire, the magnetism of it all engulfing them completely.

— — — —

The Pluto vampire could lay there for the rest of his immortality in this state of nirvana. Even without his partner by his side, though preferred, there was just this sense of complete euphoria he’d always longed for. How could he forget the times that he was living in the sweltering, muggy and mosquito infested swamplands; his body positioned similar to this exact one as he attempted to see a world beyond his plane of existence. Surrounded by the start of his father’s yard decoration that encroached on the late summer and early fall blooms his mother worked so hard on each year. A sea of prairie blazing star, creeping liriope, and sunset huskmallow in his view that reminds him of the scene in Alice in Wonderland where she is among all the flowers who speak to her. Yet instead of just bundles of willow leaf sunflower and black-eyed susans, magically carved pumpkins and animated skeletons haphazardly littered the space. The cracking sound just a few feet away snapped him into realization that he was no longer recounting a memory, but back in the bayou. His home, with all its familiar smells and sounds. But that didn’t quite make sense, Casper had just been in the greenery of the fae and not his mothers— hadn’t he?

Lurching up, emerald irises bouncing around as the vampire adorned a look of confusion, Casper noticed the silhouette of his father perched on his family's southern-style wrap around porch. Was this real? Casper had experienced his fair share of delusions and elixir induced fantasies, but there was something about this one that just hit different. This had all the make-up of a nightmare and he couldn’t help the chuckle that flooded from his lips, practically feeling validated for all the times he had referenced his existence in the natural world as his film inspiration. Certainly the silhouette wasn’t Cortney, even if it did sound like him, the former witch’s gut boiled with alarm that told him otherwise. Pumpkin guts splattered across the dark walnut stained deck that shifted to pools of blood as the stranger in sheep's clothing positioned the once embedded hatchet in a way that only suggested one thing; run like hell.

Cypresses and oak trees swoosh past him as his vampire instincts fully take over, irises peeking slightly behind himself in order to see if the stranger was still at his heels, only to notice the sheen of blood in his view. How could they keep up? Casper was no longer a witch testing his illusion magic in the backwaters of Louisiana, but somehow he sensed he was back there in those moments of becoming someone else’s prey and each direction seeming to lead him towards a dead end without much hope for an escape.

#casper.para #e: the masquerade #task 001 / childhood memories #prompt.#// more maybe added later

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darkfrog24 · 1 year

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A few weeks ago, I read Pamela Paul’s defense of JK Rowling in the New York Times. According to Paul, Rowling only said a few things about trans men and trans women, and they were very mild. With all this hate on J.K. Rowling for being anti-trans, I figured I should probably find out what she actually did. I found this article in Glamour.

JKR wrote a joking post in which she implies another post that says “people who menstruate” should have just said “women.”

JKR posted, “I don’t hate trans ppl and would march with them, but I think sex is real and has consequences.”

So far so not that bad. This is similar to what Paul said JKR said. But the Glamour article goes on to cite a post on her own website where we see Rowling’s views straight from the source.

Rowling says she’d been researching trans issues for a book, including taking notes on Twitter posts, and she accidentally hit “like” instead of just taking a screenshot on one of them. She doesn’t say what this Tweet said but does say that she was harassed after that, so I’m guessing it was transphobic.

Again on Twitter, she followed a then-dying lesbian who’d been (JKR’s words) a “a great believer in the importance of biological sex” and supporter of lesbian women’s right not to date “trans women with penises.”

She says TERFs shouldn’t be considered trans-exclusionary because “they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

She cites stats on people detransitioning out of regret that strike me as probably inaccurate. I heard elsewhere that most people who detransition do it because of prejudice from the outside, not belief that their transition was wrong.

She cites parents claiming that whole peer groups of girls decide to transition at once. That strikes me as questionable.

She seems to think that girl-presenting young people transition to male roles because they want to “escape their womanhood” and the sexism it entails.

She acknowledges that transition is the right choice for many people, acknowledges the increased risks of violence they face, and says she knows and likes at least one trans woman and thinks of her as a woman.

She says that women and girls are in danger from policies that allow “any man who says he’s a woman” to enter bathrooms. It’s my understanding that men don’t pretend to be trans women to enter bathrooms to harass women.

Okay, so in this essay, she seems sincerely afraid for other women, but the thing she’s afraid of—predators pretending to be trans women—isn’t real, and it would be relatively easy for her to learn this. What I’m drawing from this piece is that 1) Rowling doesn’t think she’s anti-trans. 2) She is anti-trans access to women’s spaces. 3) She has a number of misconceptions about trans people, many of them harmful. 4) She claims to support trans people in terms of protection from violence.

Back to Glamour.

Rowling deleted a Tweet praising Stephen King right after King made a pro-trans post and blocked King.

Rowling claimed there were fake Tweets on Twitter attributed to her.

Rowling said gender affirming care was like conversion therapy and that doctors were pushing it on teens.

Rowling wrote a fictional book about a man who disguises himself as a woman to kill women, which matches her fear of men pretending to be trans women.

The article cites Tweets in which people send death threats and say nasty things to Rowling.

Here’s my take-away: Rowling’s not the cartoonish proud anti-trans Mel-Gibson-style ranter I was expecting. She’s someone who’s anti-trans but doesn’t think she is. Not everything she says about women and trans people is wrong, to the point where I can understand why she doesn’t understand how any of it is wrong. She has indeed been harassed and hounded online. This is consistent with posts I’ve seen claiming that Rowling went through a process similar to the one that turns teenaged male netgoers into incels and fascists. They say something somewhat offensive out of ignorance, then they’re met with hostility, and then they allow themselves to be driven away from facts and toward self-justification. The difference is that those boys are children who can be forgiven for not knowing better and Rowling is an adult.

If Rowling comes back from this, it’ll be by putting her money where her mouth is: She claims to feel solidarity with trans women because they’re at risk of domestic violence like she was. JKR could follow up on that by supporting legislation, advocacy groups, and other organizations that protect trans people from violence. However, even according to Paul, JKR has argued that trans women should not stay in the same domestic violence shelters as cis women.

In the United States in the 20th century, many whites voted for laws that said “separate but equal.” I can’t think of an example of even one who went to bat and demanded that Blacks be given equal facilities and resources as the law seemed to demand.

This does not address the concerns about Rowling and antisemitism.

#JK Rowling #trans #Is JK Rowling a terf?#yup #get the whole story #harry potter #seven years down #reminds me of segregationists who thought they had 'nothing against' Black Americans #but the people who voted for separate but equal really wanted separate and grossly inequal and that is what happened #the high queen

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cyarsk5230 · 9 months

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Horrorcore

Subgenre of hip hop music based in horror-themed lyrical content and imagery

Not to be confused with Horror punk.

Horrorcore, also called horror hip hop, horror rap, death hip hop, or death rap, is a subgenre of hip hop music based on horror-themed and often darkly transgressive lyrical content and imagery. Its origins derived from certain hardcore hip hop and gangsta rap artists, such as the Geto Boys, which began to incorporate supernatural, occult, and psychological horror themes into their lyrics. Unlike most hardcore hip hop and gangsta rap artists, horrorcore artists often push the violent content and imagery in their lyrics beyond the realm of realistic urban violence, to the point where the violent lyrics become gruesome, ghoulish, unsettling, inspired by slasher films or splatter films. While exaggerated violence and the supernatural are common in horrorcore, the genre also frequently presents more realistic yet still disturbing portrayals of mental illness and drug abuse. Some horrorcore artists eschew supernatural themes or exaggerated violence in favor of more subtle and dark psychological horror imagery and lyrics.

Horrorcore has incited controversy, with some members of the law enforcement community asserting that the genre incites crime. Fans and artists have been blamed for numerous high-profile instances of violent criminal activity, including the Columbine High School massacre, the Red Lake high school massacre, the Farmville murders, murders of law enforcement officers, and gang activity.

Characteristics

Horrorcore defines a style of hip hop music that focuses primarily on dark, violent, gothic, transgressive, macabre and/or horror-influenced topics such as death, psychosis, psychological horror, mental illness, satanism, self-harm, cannibalism, mutilation, suicide, murder, torture, drug abuse, and supernatural or occult themes. The lyrics are often inspired by horror movies and are performed over moody, hardcore beats.According to rapper Mars, "If you take Stephen King or Wes Craven and you throw them on a rap beat, that's who I am". Horrorcore was described by Entertainment Weekly in 1995 as a "blend of hardcore rap and bloodthirsty metal". The lyrical content of horrorcore is sometimes described as being similar to that of death metal, and some have referred to the genre as "death rap". Horrorcore artists often feature dark imagery in their music videos and base musical elements of songs upon horror film scores.

History

Origins

LA Weekly listed Jimmy Spicer's 1980 single "Adventures of Super Rhyme" as the first example of "proto-horrorcore", due to a lengthy segment of the song in which Spicer recounts his experience of meeting Dracula. The group Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde specialized in horror-themed music. Dana Dane's song "Nightmares" related a frightening narrative.

Since 1986, Ganxsta N.I.P. has performed horror-themed lyrics that he has described as "Psycho Rap", but he was not commonly considered to be horrorcore until the term came into mainstream prominence. Ganxsta N.I.P. has written lyrics for other groups, including Geto Boys, who were also an influence on the early horrorcore sound.

In 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince released "A Nightmare on My Street", which described an encounter with Freddy Krueger, and the Fat Boys recorded the similarly-themed "Are You Ready for Freddy" for the film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and its soundtrack. 1988 is also the year Insane Poetry (at the time called His Majesti) released "Armed & Dangerous", followed by their debut single as Insane Poetry, "Twelve Strokes Till Midnight", one of the first examples of music specifically made to be horrorcore.

Although Kool Keith claimed to have "invented horrorcore", the first use of the term appeared on the group KMC's 1991 album Three Men With the Power of Ten. Nonetheless, Kool Keith brought significant attention to horror-influenced hip hop with his lyrical content as a part of the Ultramagnetic MC's and his 1996 debut solo album Dr. Octagonecologyst.

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