#i don't like this poem very much but i thought i'd post it anyway

[leucoma]

Louie Stearns, "Bird Things Only"

#mine #louie stearns #i don't like this poem very much but i thought i'd post it anyway #i wrote it while having a literal panic attack in minnesota #so yeah not the most lucid writing #poetry

[cobraz]

birthday post for @twilightclouds !!!!🫶🏾

characters: layla, freminet, & kazuha!!

— "Happy birthday. I got you this pocket astrolabe... The same stars witness the fate of the human race today as did yesterday, and as will forever. May they cast their gaze upon you, and may they stay with you always, through the desert and across the ocean, until you reach your destination."

she's surprisingly attentive (sometimes) even while she's drowsy, so if you were to ever go on about something you'd like, she'd make a mental note of it.

prepares your present a few weeks away from your birthday, even if she has a hard time balancing her schedule and working on it. (she eventual pushes through!!!)

when she finally reveals the gift to you, it's full of trinkets you've mentioned or hinted at wanting over the course of your friendship (or relationship🤷🏾‍♀️), and a hand written letter talking about how much you mean to her.

is confused when you ask how she remembered all these things. and she just stares at you like: "why wouldn't i remember that?"

nonetheless, her gift is very sentimental!

— "... I have a secret hideout there, and I keep some glowing sea creatures as pets... I just want to give you a birthday experience like you've never had before, and then give you my birthday wishes... Will you give me the chance to do that?"

definitely doesn't know what to get you. he wants to get you everything but doesn't want your present to be too flashy or too subtle.

eventually resorts to his siblings for advice, but their advice doesn't seem to help him either.

he ponders long and hard about it, and eventually decides to build you something, (and take you somewhere.)

you know those lego flowers?? that's what i'd imagine he'd make for you, but obviously not lego. and somehow he'd find a way to make them bloom when you hold them.

tells you to meet him close to the beach on your birthday, and takes you to this pretty cove on the edge of it.

he's very shy when he gives you your gift, his head down, and his voice barely audible when he wishes you a happy birthday.

— "I guess I'll just share what I've got so far, then. "Sun and moon rejoice / Birds of dawn sing songs anew"... Wait, don't say a word, I think the final line is coming to me... Yes, how about.... "Far from home, with you." Anyway, Happy Birthday. Let's go and get you some cake, shall we?"

writes poems for you as your gift. he conveys things easily with his words, so it only makes sense.

it's definitely something you'll have to decipher to understand the meaning, but when you do it's really sweet.

overall, his poems are about his experiences with you, and how much he appreciates you.

100% tear jerking, and if it wasn't for his amazing senses, he would've thought he you didn't like his gift if you cried.

his choice of words is so perfect, how couldn't you shed a tear?? but anyway, he's definitely on the list for one of the most thoughtful gifts.

#HAPPY BIRTHDAY RINNN!!!🫶🏾 #genshin impact #genshin x reader #jujutsu kaisen #genshin #genshin fluff #genshin impact x reader #birthday #birthday post!!!

[yamameta-inc]

the orochi revisited: the takagin edit

the digital version of yaoizine vol.2 has been out for a while, so i thought i'd finally post my essay on here! some of the jokes don't work as well without the context of the zine's cover but lol. hope you enjoy anyway. a very brief overview of the takagin relationship in relation to my first essay's framework

The following paper is a commentary on and tribute to My Orochi Stood Up: A Draconic Response to "eat shit and die” (1948), in celebration of its 75th anniversary. Though much has changed in the anal-ytic landscape since Orochi was first published, much is still the same. As the pioneer of ouroboros theory, a now interdisciplinary framework that has made many valuable contributions to the study of literature both anally inclined and not, My Orochi Stood Up is a foundational work that has remained relevant and resonant across years and disciplines. However, in this text I will be focusing on Orochi’s roots first and foremost as a piece of Gintamaology.

To begin, we must acknowledge that it is impossible to discuss My Orochi Stood Up without also accounting for the work it was written in response to, T. S. Hirt’s eat shit and die (1938), or the original unnamed poem where most of its ideas first took shape (1944). Unfortunately, providing a commentary of the former would be beyond the scope of this paper. Readers interested in anality are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with this watershed text in Gintama escatology, as it lays the groundwork for everything that follows. As for the poem, it is referenced at length in My Orochi Stood Up, but I have decided to omit mention of it–among many other things–owing to this journal’s physical constraints. While I regret the necessity of this, there is simply too much to say on the subject of “the pole and the hole” in Gintama–particularly the pole, which Gintama explores with endless fascination. The sword, the pillar, the Terminal, the gravestone, the tree–with its fondness for substitution as well as its love of dirty things, Gintama’s collection of treasured motifs has no shortage of things that stand erect. 

Both pole and hole are equally important to the cycle of self-fertilization first described by My Orochi Stood Up almost a century ago. Yet Orochi was, understandably, primarily preoccupied with explaining its ouroboros thesis, leaving it with limited room to discuss in-story logistics beyond the conceptual framework and Gintama’s broad thematics. As you may have guessed, this paper will attempt to do so–and for this purpose it would be more efficient to start from the bottom up, so to speak. So this essay is dedicated instead to the hole, that gaping void named as Gintama’s ultimate antagonist. Let us now revisit the holeistic framework of the serpent swallowing its tail while examining one of Gintama’s most fraught relationships: Gintoki and Takasugi. 

______________________________________________________________

First, it cannot be overstated how much Gintama relies on duality and parallel structures. The Gintama cast and narrative is constructed like a hall of mirrors, parallels upon parallels upon parallels organized on each side of a central divide. This intersecting line, as shown in Figure 1.1, is what creates the reflection in the first place, allowing characters to be mirrors (or, in the prized language of fandom, foils). One could consider it the glass of the mirror, or the organizing force of the narrative itself. The creation of this dividing line provides structure to the characters, the world, and its temporality–but it is also an act of violence. See Fig 1.1.

Fig. 1.1: ⭩🢥⮀🢛❑⮅⮡🢜

On a diegetic level, bad things happen to the characters because life is difficult, and mostly similar bad things happen to everyone because the series rests upon the Joui war and its related conflicts the way a world rests on the back of a turtle. But perhaps more relevantly, Gintama’s central conceit is that one’s ultimate enemy is always oneself, so naturally all enemies can eventually be conflated. It is an efficient tautological loop. 

What separates the characters on each side of the dividing line, then, is not the degree of suffering they undergo but their response to that violence. My Orochi Stood Up terms these unfortunate souls who end up on the wrong side of the divide “hole-sided.” Their lack is caused not by their injury, but by their own response to it, by their failure, for a time, to live up to their own humanity. This is the position occupied by the antagonists (and, intermittently and continuously, yet somehow always away from the reader’s eyes, our protagonist Gintoki), those who have failed to fill the lack in their souls like responsible adults. 

That which Gintama prescribes to fill these naturally and unnaturally occurring holes in humans is dirt: the debris accrued from a lifetime of living, brushing shoulders with other people, becoming stained by them, becoming dirty and worn as you mature, subjecting yourself to the deeply humiliating and humbling experience of being alive. Of course, as both eat shit and die and My Orochi Stood Up illuminate, in Gintama “dirt” is also a synonym and euphemism for “shit.” We are thus not talking about just any dirt-filled hole, but specifically about the anus. The vulgarity of Gintama’s framing of bonds–as shitting onto and into each other–and its use of shit as a humanizing trait is highly characteristic of both the series’s general sense of humour and the ways in which it mixes gags and serious delivery of narrative to create a densely layered non-linear experience in which absurdity and tragedy are forcibly, jarringly concomitant. 

As T. S. Hirt wrote in 1948, “the anus—the dirty human things—is the home for the phallus—the ideals we hold, the source of our power.” Indeed, were Gintama not so irreverent about its most valued symbol, the sword, due to its fondness for wordplay and for low-hanging fruit, perhaps the nationalistic bent of the series would be more questionable. But as My Orochi Stood Up argued, Gintama’s emphasis on wordplay and its fearless decision to call itself the equivalent of “Ligma” are integral to a thematic understanding of the series, and are key to the ouroboros thesis in particular.

But perhaps the singularly most important example is the -tama in Gintama, with its plethora of potential meanings, each of them just silly and dirty enough that you have to take it seriously. Beyond the obvious joke on kintama (balls) and the “silver soul” direct meaning, we’ve seen that tama is also easily conflated with atama (head), and even with tamago (egg). This is clearly demonstrated with the series’ fixation on beheading leading to the salvation of the soul and the bodyswap arc hinging on the pun between soul and egg. [...] The fact that the characters end up turning into giant turds, likening the soul-egg-balls to an asshole, only drives the point in further. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

To return to the unfortunate hole-sided, these are the characters who lack dirt, who could not withstand the mortifying ordeal of being alive. The natural assumption to make here would be that Gintama then juxtaposes opposing forces, setting “desiring-pairs” of head and hole, sword and scabbard in conflict with each other. Indeed, Gintoki is stabbed again and again, with all kinds of blades–but the villains do not want to stab him as much as they want him to stab them, with his much more meaningful sword. Yet those who are hole-sided do not seek to be filled.

[...] But this is a different process than emptying yourself, which is what the antagonists are doing. All Gintama villains are hole-sided, desperately trying to destroy themselves while pretending, as hard as they can, that they don’t know that you can’t destroy a hole–only make it bigger. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

Takasugi desires Gintoki, not because he believes Gintoki can make him whole again, but rather because he knows he cannot ever be whole again, and that is because of his love for Gintoki. Moreover, the series’ consistent use of language such as “broken” versus “unbroken” swords implies that those who cannot be filled are also those who cannot fill others. Just as the serpent cannot swallow its tail without filling its own mouth, its mouth cannot be filled without having a tail to swallow. As My Orochi Stands Up makes clear, the process of self-creation and other-creation are effectively one and the same in Gintama.

All Gintama antagonists are in parallel with each other and in mirror with their counterparts, who in turn contain echoes of our protagonist, Gintoki. In this way, the entire story can be folded in on itself, side over side, into the shape of Gintoki, the microcosm, like a piece of carefully designed origami. One of the most popular endings of the anime, ending 25, “Glorious Days,” demonstrates one half of this as Gintoki stands unmoving and unchanged as the anime’s large roster of antagonists replace each other before him in quick succession, different times and places flashing past without emphasis. “Nothing has changed,” Gintama constantly claims, while simultaneously showing us how the world has entered a different era, a different century, a different genre, in the span of ten years.

In the ending, Takasugi and Gintoki haunt each other’s footsteps. Takasugi’s feet in Gintoki’s reflection in the water lag one step behind, unable to keep up with him but unable to stop chasing after him, while Gintoki’s ghost is not even visible in Takasugi’s reflection; instead, Gintoki’s presence is indicated by Takasugi’s own reflection stopping and looking back.

Gintoki and Takasugi are the most important pair of mirror selves in Gintama, and inarguably the most yaoistic. Rather than homoeroticism, however, what they have could perhaps be termed a sort of homothematicism. Whereas Gintoki has filled himself with dirt and debris from the series’ overflowing, enormous cast, learning and re-learning how to be human, Takasugi is caught in an incandescent storm of rage and grief, a serpent futilely trying to swallowing itself in the literal sense. But he can never succeed, because he has nothing to fill his belly with other than himself; there is nothing he values in the self he is trying to destroy; thus, he can never satisfy his desire to hurt himself.

Takasugi’s immortality is of the same kind as Utsuro’s, which is to say, hole-sided. It is not that they cannot be killed, only that they cannot die. Takasugi therefore turns to the same drastic final resort as Utsuro: destroying the world in order to destroy themselves. Again we can observe Gintoki’s role as the microcosm in comparison to Shouyou and Utsuro’s exaggerated, macrocosmic style. My Orochi Stood Up details how Utsuro as well as the eponymous Orochi’s identities blur into that of their respective planets, likening them to world snakes. Tied to the Earth itself, Utsuro’s existence cannot end independently of it; his only recourse is to destroy Earth, and perhaps take the entire universe with it.

To Takasugi, however, the world is synonymous with Gintoki. 

Takasugi’s doomed love for Gintoki affords him an interesting position in the narrative, where his conflation between Gintoki’s sword and the pillar of the world aligns with the story’s folded structure centered around Gintoki. Takasugi is Gintoki’s shadow, Gintoki’s “other self”, as Gintama terms it, but weak, diminished, unable to carry the burden of living or live up to Shouyou’s teachings. Gintama’s villains–and its weaklings–are those who will recklessly hurt others in order to harm themselves; its heroes are those who will fight themselves in order to become better versions of themselves. Conveniently, in this cast the villains are the heroes are the villains–and so in defeating the villains, the heroes overcome their own shadows, while the villains knowingly throw themselves into this process out of desperate hope that this will finally end their miserable roles in this story.

Takasugi, then, tries to destroy Gintoki because it is the only way he can destroy himself. On one level, part of him possesses the same general meta-awareness that all Gintama characters have about their allotted roles, and knows that if they were to clash, Gintoki would be the one to successfully devour him. But for the most part, Takasugi’s motivations are painfully earnest and straightforward: harming Gintoki simply hurts more than harming himself can ever hope to accomplish, and if Gintoki were to die, so too would Takasugi’s world crumble to nothing. 

What is interesting is Gintoki’s response to these violent advances. Gintoki, of course, understands full well what kind of story he is in at all times. “Too bad,” he tells Takasugi, scraping himself back up from the ground. “I won’t fall. Until you stop, I’ll keep standing back up.” Here Gintoki himself is positioned as one of those things that stand erect. The Gintoki in Takasugi’s memory that is invoked is “a figure that stands before Takasugi”–or, put another way, Gintoki understands his duty in their relationship as that to keep standing, for as long as Takasugi needs something erect to throw himself against.

Thus, when Takasugi says that the world will not end as long as Gintoki’s sword remains unbroken, while Gintoki says that the only way to stop Takasugi is to stop his breathing, Gintoki becomes the immovable object and Takasugi the (un)stoppable force. However, in a fascinating inversion of the usual connotations, here the object is presented as something the force has chased after all its life, something unattainable and unreachable and yet no less immovable. Meanwhile, the force traps itself in a circular, looping motion, its unstoppable momentum doing nothing to help it escape its labyrinth. But in their battle, Takasugi and Gintoki do manage to reach each other; not because of Takasugi’s desperate violence, but because Gintoki’s interiority is as vast as the story they are in, and he is able to take Takasugi into himself. 

My Orochi Stood Up’s ouroboros thesis is famously anchored in western alchemical and philosophical concepts. It frames Gintama’s mission of human-becoming as the enacting of the Great Work, viewing Gintama’s parallelism through the lens of the individuation process. On the ouroboros as a symbol of two becoming one, it quotes Carl Jung:

In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feedback' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious. (The Collected Works of Carl Jung, Volume 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1977)

Gintoki’s assimilation of his shadow, of his other self, is best represented by the moment where he finally visibly attains “a human’s sword” at the end of the series. Takasugi’s reflection in Gintoki’s blade bequeaths upon him the honour of being the face of Gintoki’s “human’s sword.” This is a similar use of the reflection as in Ending 25. What is made clear by comparing these two moments is the same obvious truth that Gintama has impressed upon its readers all along: Gintoki is capable of containing Takasugi within him, but Takasugi is not capable of the reverse.

Or, more accurately, Takasugi is chiefly defined by the fact that he carries Gintoki’s ghost within him–and was driven insane by it. Gintoki was able to quietly shoulder the knowledge that his actions caused Takasugi’s descent into madness, but Takasugi was never able to inure himself to the sight of Gintoki’s tears. Takasugi is hole-sided primarily because he hollowed himself out in a vain attempt to scrape the image out. But dirt, as My Orochi Stood Up states, is what remains. 

Takasugi’s crushed left eye has ever been his most obvious hole. Indeed, confronting Gintoki again made him aware that the image of Gintoki’s face that he had been carrying around in his eye like a grain of sand was in fact a speck of “dirt.” And of course, Takasugi was never empty: though the Kiheitai are sparse characters, they serve quite clearly to illustrate that Takasugi had never stopped being surrounded by people who trusted and depended on him, people who could participate in Gintama’s dirty gags and absurd comedy in the ways he could not, and people who, on multiple occasions, physically emulated Takasugi in order to inject his likeness into the series’ gags even when he was not present. People who, in short, supplied him with dirt.

The linkages between the gross and vulgar nature of Gintama’s preferred jokes and the double entendre in the meaning of “dirt” are an intrinsic part of both Gintama’s vision of life and the ouroboros framework. As T. S. Hirt explained, “the persistence of those dirty things marks the permanence of one’s relationships. something clean would never stick so.” Gintama posits that living is mortifying, humiliating, and while not shameful, certainly full of shame and debasement. To be a character that clings to dignity–or to whom dignity clings to–in Gintama is to accept an unfavourable life expectancy. Takasugi, while participating in a few gags, was never thoroughly embarrassed by them. His friends’ actions thus helped to tether him to the world of the living, even at his most ghostly. 

Holes do not need to be completely empty to be deemed holes. Such a proposition would be absurd. Holes are identifiable even when filled partway with soil–even, perhaps, when brilled to the brim. No one is truly empty. My Orochi Stood Up makes clear early on that “head vs hole” is not a false dichotomy, but a misleading one: 

You can reduce everything in Gintama to essentially two things. Shouyou and Utsuro. Gintoki and Takasugi. Humans and monsters. [...] Those who take in and those who are taken in. Those who keep struggling and those who don’t. And then you can also always reduce these two things to one thing: Shouyou/Utsuro are, after all, the same being [...]. You can’t pick yourself back up if you never lost in the first place. We know that Gintoki has managed to become “a splendid human” by the end of the series–so what was he before that? Was he really a monster? At what exact point in the series did he become human? Was it while he was on-screen, while we were looking, but without us noticing? Was it off-screen, while we were flipping the page, or in the space between the panels? The answer, of course, is that he was learning to be human every day of his life [...]. And so “which one is the head and which one is the hole?” is the wrong question. Even if you assigned one to each half and managed not to be wrong, since they’re collapsible into one anyway, they’ll always be both. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

To be hole-sided is not to be the hole. It is to be stagnant, to be trapped in a state of needing to be filled without being able to carry out the process of self-constitution with the dirt that is received. In the end, Gintoki, the “reluctant hole” as T. S. Hirt iconically termed, is the one who takes Takasugi into himself. My Orochi Stood Up quotes philosopher Bernard Stiegler: “The I is essentially a process, not a state, and this process is an in-dividuation [...]. It is the tendency to become one, that is, to become indivisible.” This is, I argue, the climax of their homothematic relationship. Not coincidentally, it is also the climax of Gintoki’s personal quest to become human, the individuation that Jung and Stiegler speak of. 

My Orochi Stood Up capitalizes on the ouroboros’ nature as a symbol of fertility to liken dirt not only to shit but to seed, and the hole to the womb where the tama (egg/soul) is fertilized. It is an intentionally paradoxical and anachronistic framework, where one must have an unbroken sword to be able to be fertilized by the dirt of others, yet it is only through that fertilization that one’s sword can be forged. This is simply another iteration of the classic chicken-or-egg dilemma, as befits the motif of the ouroboros. But for the characters of Gintama, this paradox reflects their continuous responsibility: the task of becoming human is a Sisyphean one that will span their lifetimes and beyond.

In other words, as Takasugi was folded into Gintoki, he found that he was already there; that his lack was filled by Gintoki because he was filling Gintoki; and that being a ghost did not preclude anyone from being human.

I have spoken at length about holes and serpents up until this point without mentioning the eponymous dragon, Utsuro. This is partially because this essay was focused on Takasugi and Gintoki’s relationship, and partially because practically all insights regarding Utsuro are contained within the framework of the ouroboros thesis itself. As the world snake, his body and bones were used to construct the theory we have been discussing, his lack identical in essence to the other hole-sided. It is worth noting, however, that for Gintoki, Utsuro represented the unreachable object. Gintoki’s deepest anxiety was over his blade not reaching Utsuro, because he had been told that he could only reach him with a human’s sword. In the end, as we have seen, he does indeed manage to reach him, with Takasugi’s soul in his hands. 

Takasugi, too, manages to reach Gintoki in the end. Cradled in Gintoki’s arms, he is brave enough–and selfish enough–to ask for a fleeting smile. My Orochi Stood Up argues that the moment Gintoki’s tragedy was revealed to us through Takasugi’s eye was the one that broke Gintama’s own narrative cyclicity. This was, of course, the original bit of dirt flung into Takasugi’s hole that he could not cope with, that halted his process of individuation. As previously mentioned, the ten years that separate the end of the Joui war from the present day span an entire age. At the very end, this eternity spent wandering, too, ruptures, and Takasugi finally finds his way out of the labyrinth, only to look back and see a clear and straight path through the trees.

______________________________________________________________

This essay has been a brief exploration of Takasugi and Gintoki’s relationship in the context of My Orochi Stood Up’s innovative ouroboros framework. In the seventy-five years since it was first published, it has been transformed in diverse and exciting ways. However, I thought it only fitting that for this major anniversary, the focus be brought back to the Gintama characters that first inspired it. Rather than the iconic dragon, Shouyou/Utsuro, this piece has chosen to focus instead on his two most intertwined disciples. While not necessarily treading any new ground, I hope to have presented an interesting snapshot of this relationship known for being simultaneously transparent and opaque.

As we have seen, this relationship is one made possible by the intense parallel structure it embodies. Just as Takasugi serves as Gintoki’s shadow, their journey and the cannibalistic nature of their duality echo the conflict represented by their teacher, and in many respects parallel the shape of the narrative itself. In this way, the position they occupy in relation to these other draconic structures–micro- or macrocosm–is perhaps a reversible one. 

In short, though Gintama “cannot resist the phallus,” as T. S. Hirt said, it is also singularly concerned with holes: how they are filled, what results from them, what constitutes them. The only question it does not ask is what creates them. It is instead implicit that human beings naturally possess holes, that they are a natural part of the anatomy of both our bodies and souls. And thus, it is natural both to fill them and to fail to fill them; the fertile infinity of the ouroboros guarantees that should one fail, there will always be tomorrow.

#gintama #takagin #well. just take it #a lot of unavoidable overlap so not as much value as my first essay but. you know #i was NOT going to assume hapless yaoizine 2 readers would know what the fuck i was talking about.

[fragiledewdrop]

TOLKIEN, MYTH AND THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

A week ago I wrote a post about my excitement in discovering just how much Tolkien took inspiration from Anglo-Saxon poetry.

I was so lost in my little over-emotional bubble that I was genuinely a little surprised when a few people expressed their disappointment in discovering that "The Lord of The Rings" wasn't wholly original. It makes sense, though, so I thought I'd address it.

These are @fortunes-haven ' s tags:

@sataidelenn already wrote an interesting reply, but I'd like to approach the question from a different point of view. Why? Because the first thing I thought about when reading this comment was how I myself have grumbled under my breath about having to wade through someone's "personal mythology smoothie", only I wasn't reading Tolkien. I was reading T. S. Eliot.

Now, I want to preface this by making it clear that I am well aware Tolkien is by no means a modernist. He did, however, write LOTR in England in the late 30s. He was part of the same culture, the same society, and above all the same historical context that produced "The Waste Land" and "Ulysses", and I think we should take that into account when we discuss his work.

Because by the time Tolkien published LOTR, Joyce and Eliot and Yeats had already discussed and applied the mythic method. Was Tolkien aware of their debates? Did he read and appreciate their books? I have no clue. It would take some research to find out, research I currently (unfortunately) don’t have time for. But I do not think it a stretch to suggest that Tolkien might have been moved by the same need that drove other writers to look back at myth, although in very different ways.

Why did Joyce and Eliot feel compelled to return to the narrative roots of mankind? Why did Yeats devote so much time to Celtic lore? Why did Tolkien write a new epic and base it on the Saxon world?

The answer is the same: because they lived at the start of a century that posed more questions than ever, but provided no answers; a century when time and the human mind and the very structure of matter had ceased to be solid, defined, a foundation to rely on; a century torn apart by brutal, inhumane, sensless war.

When you can't find answers in the present and the future is so uncertain it's laughable, you look to the past. Because the thing is, we can talk about "personal mythology" all we want, but myths are never personal. They are universal. They are tied to a specific cultural context, certainly, but they exemplify emotions, truths and tragedies that are common (or supposed to be common) to all humankind, beyond space and time. Myths are supposed to be eternal.

They are also a very effective shorthand to communicate rather complex concepts.

I can write five pages telling my girlfriend that she makes me feel safe, that she is something I've longed for and fought to gain, something I've dreamed about but that I'm scared I'll lose. I could, and I probably wouldn’t be able to convey exactly what I mean.

Or I could say "She is my Ithaca" and you would get it, wouldn’t you?

There are whole books that try to explain the symbolism behind "The Green Knight", but Eliot can offhandedly mention a chapel and he has basically evoked the whole original poem plus the centuries of scolarship that followed.

Tolkien could have had his characters recite long monologues about how they feel like their world has been lost. Instead, he has one of them sing a song by the campfire. An 8th century song, about a warrior in exile. He achieves in a couple of lines what could have taken him a whole book to convey, and he does it in a way that goes straight to the heart, even if we don't know exactly why.

And that's the thing: not all of us spend years researching myths and old poetry. Certainly we don't do it when reading LOTR for the first time, especially if that's when we are 13 or 10 or 8 years old. But we get it anyway. We know myths, especially Western myths, one way or another, as if through cultural osmosis. We understand myths from other cultures too- we may need a bit of context, but we do- and often we find that the bones of the stories are similar, across oceans and centuries.

That means that using myths as the building blocks of your story is an amazingly effective way to cut to the quick, to get to the core of what the narrative is aiming at.

I have seen so many people talk about the feeling they get when reading LOTR, or even just thinking about it: that nostalgia? That bittersweet hurt? That longing for something bright and lost, for a star or a jewel or a land beyond the sea? That, right there. That is what Tolkien achieves by telling stories inside stories, by having his words have a meaning and weight that we would associate with a bard or a preacher, not a fantasy writer. And, as I have discovered recently, it's almost exactly the same feeling you get when reading Saxon poetry.

It's almost as if he chose it on purpose, isn’t it?

That's not all, though.

As both people tagged above(and many others, myself included) have already written, Tolkien doesn’t just use myths as building blocks. He alters them.

Yes, Frodo's hero's journey is not typical. Yes, there are a lot of similarities between the last part of LOTR and the Odissey, but they are not quite the same.

That's because Frodo is not, and can't be, Ulysses. He isn’t a warrior crowned with glory and cunning who reconquers his home and that leaves it because a god has promised him peace if he does. He is a mutilated soldier coming home from the trenches, only to find that he no longer belongs in the home he has bled for.

Frodo is a new hero, for a new age (just like Ulysses was a new hero for a new age, which I rather think is one of the reasons Joyce chose him as the model for his novel. The Odissey was already subversive in and of itself. "An odd duck", as @sataidelenn put it.)

We have to understand just how traumatic WWI was. It's a shift, a break so immense that it changed society, politics, culture, family structures, the idea of hero and even of manhood. The Western World was not the same after 1918. Of course art changed too.

Would Tolkien have written LOTR had he not fought in that war? Probably. But it would have been a very, very different book. The way it deals with war, technology, trauma, peace and friendship-all the things we love about it- are direct fruits of that conflict. I think the way myth fits into it is, too.

I can understand being disappointed that not everything in Lotr is wholly new, wholly Tolkien's invention. It didn’t even occur to be to be, though, because I am used of thinking of it in these terms.

All the myths he uses- from Kullervo to Ulysses to Beowolf to medieval fairy tales- are means to tell a new story. They come back to life, and while we perceive how timeless they are, they end up telling us something that is rooted in time. A new English epic, yes, but very clearly an epic of England between two world wars. A 20th century heroic tale which offers a desperate, brave hope for the future. How can we not love it?

And look, I might joke about personal mythology smoothies to myself all the time, but the reason I keep reading and studying Eliot and Joyce and Yeats is that they do have something new to say, something amazing. You can take them or leave them, love them or hate them, but "unoriginal" is not an adjective you can, in good conscience, apply to their work.

I think, in a weird way, Tolkien is the same.

"In manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses the discoveries of an Einstein in pursuing his own, independent, further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. It is a method already adumbrated by Mr. Yeats, and of the need for which I believe that Mr. Yeats to have been first contemporary to be conscious. Psychology (such as it is, and whether our reaction to it be comic or serious), ethnology, and The Golden Bough have concurred to make possible what was impossible even a few years ago. Instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythic method. It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art." –T.S. Eliot, from Ulysses, Order, and Myth (1923)

#tolkien #lotr #tolkien meta #literature #myth #does this make sense? I hope it does #I really wanted to reply earlier but alas life #you can tell I have put a tiny bit of thought in this over the years uh

[yallemagne]

Hmm Mina studying criminology independent of any usefulness to Jonathan (she kept up with his studies on property law instead, and like you said he's a solicitor), kind of reminds me... Jonathan also has no use for ghost stories. Mina though spends paragraphs talking about every spooky legend about her vacation spot. Not every young person researches about girl ghosts in ruins, and invisible mourning bells for their seaside summer break. (Now I also recall she reads an old poem about a buried girl while there? Marmion?). Further, she pokes old men there to tell her more about those. (And gets "oh don't be scared it's all fake! not for young girls like you!" but she keeps pestering). When Mr Swales told her that she and Lucy sit upon a suicide grave, Lucy jumped, disturbed (but resolved to remain there anyway because she likes the seat), while Mina didn't.

Also, she talks of the Vikings sacking a town there during a specific invasion, and this tracks her knowledge about Dracula's historical battles... though I can't decide if the latter is a newer research. But it does show she has an interest in old wars.

So, I feel that maybe she has an affinity for darker subjects in general, both legendary and real life?

um that got long but your post gave me food for thought sorry

Don't be sorry for the long ask. Do you know how long I've been waiting for people to come into my inbox? I have been starved.

Jonathan has no use for ghost stories, but we do see him express curiosity about the local folklore on his trip... too bad no one wanted to talk much about it. Mina's interest in ghost stories is definitely a mix of an affinity for the macabre and her desire to be a lady journalist. She knows Whitby has a lot of rich folklore, so she reasons that the most obvious subject to tackle in her interviews is that.

Marmion! So, I will have to read this poem. I just read the summary so far. Lord Marmion was lusting after this woman, Clara, so in order to gain access to her, he and his nun mistress, Constance, framed her fiancé, Ralph, for treason. Constance hoped playing wing woman would get Marmion to like her more, but he ditched her once Clara joined a convent to escape him, and Constance was walled up for breaking her vows. She got the last laugh when she revealed Marmion's deceit, and Marmion died in battle. It's such delicious drama. I'm sure you could project Dracula onto this poem the same way you can with the Ballad of Lenore (*cough cough* Jonathan is Clara, Mina is Ralph, Constance is Renfield, Marmion is Dracula-- *gets shot*).

Sorry for that aside lol. Mina only briefly mentions it: "Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall.", and I'm like "honey tell us the whole story, would ya?"

Her knowledge of Dracula's military conquests comes from Jonathan's journal, where he interviewed Dracula about his family lineage. That is supplemented with Van Helsing's research done with the help of his friend Arminius. That was not really a personal interest thing, it was homework for killing Dracula.

But once again! Student of life. I don't know if I'd say she believed in any of the ghost stories before (hence her not being worried about the unconsecrated grave of the suicide victim, but Lucy, who is more sensitive, jumping from the seat), but she certainly has an interest in them for how they shape the world around her. She doesn't care for Mr. Swales trying to assure her that none of it is true because she isn't inquiring about the ghosts out of apprehension, she's asking because spooky legends are a part of history! They shape the cultures they are born from and inform the attitudes of the people who come from those cultures.

little bit of spoilers, read November 1:

Later on, we see that she doesn't seem very interested in Eastern European folklore. Now... a lot was going on at the time, but she does rather patronizingly call the locals superstitious. That could just be denial talking. The landscapes? Lovely. The people? Quaint. Their beliefs? Ohhhh, they're soooo irrational, psh. They acted like I was becoming a vampire right in front of them.

She's intrigued by English folklore and history, but she turns up her nose a bit when it comes to the mythology of other places... to be expected from a Victorian, but sad.

#dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula #mina harker #update #people ask me things

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

if you're ok with sharing, what fandoms are you mainly in on ao3?

I've been in a bunch of fandoms over the years. Golden Sun, Star Wars, the Legend of Zelda, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Pride and Prejudice, Doctor Who, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Death Note, Yu-Gi-Oh, Homestuck...And history has always been a low-level constant, like cosmic background radiation.

You won't find my earliest fanfics, though. AO3 wasn't a thing and FFN didn't have a category for it yet. So I made a website in HTML (uphill! Both ways! In the snow!) and posted some very...unskilled, but heartfelt, novelizations of Sumerian mythology. Two years later I let the hosting expire and didn't back it up, because I was embarrassed by how poorly written the works were.

But now, I wish I'd kept those stories. I want to repost them just to add a little more wackiness and incompetence back into the fandom world. There's so much pressure to be normal in fandom these days. People are afraid they'll get judgment or harassment just for being earnest. Back in my day we were all just a bunch of gay sewer rats who thought we were breaking the law ("I do not own these characters, please don't sue me Anne Rice!"), knew society didn't like us ("Eww, you write about fake people fucking? What's wrong with you?"), and posted our stories anyway.

Because we had to.

Because if you don't feed the part of yourself that is honest, and silly, and embarrassing, a part of your soul will suffocate.

And that's why I post my poems about dead Romans here even though I'm not very good at poetry; that's why I have a whole google document with citations (unpublished) devoted to whether Agrippa and Octavian were a couple or not. And that's why I try to encourage other folks to write and make art and be weird whenever I get a chance.

#just roman asks #positivity #be the weird you want to see in the world #writing #fandom #about jlrrt #jlrrt essays

[snailsgarden]

Heya! I hope your day/night is going wonderfully! :>>

Just to clarify and reassure I have read your pinned post and everything mentioned in it!-, I just like to do this as I find for myself that it just makes me feel a bit better but anyways-

I was hoping to be able to share some ideas with you but I completely understand if you don't vibe well with them and or just simply don't feel like writing them as that's totally understandable although if you do like this idea I have many more that I'd love to share! <33, these would be specifically for head cannons or one shots whichever writing style you'd most be more comfortable with really! (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)

I'll start off now :)

My first idea is For a Yuri x shy f!reader/nb!reader // witchever you'd more so prefer! //

the reader is a new student who showed up prior to the festival and was basically nudged by their family to join a club in order for them to get out of their shell as they're very timid and introverted? So as they saw that the literature club needed new members they decided to join that one!, After introductions though they mostly keep to themselves and don't exactly like speaking when it comes to sharing poems as they stutter a bit? Although as they enjoy tea they end up spending more time with Yuri than the others and vibe the most with Yuri's writing style/calm demenor secretly she inspires them as the reader decides to write a poem about her!-and shares it with her although nervous about it?

Basically they are kindred spirits who find comfort in each other! <3

-

OH I LOVE THIS CONCEPT SO MUCH

deeply sorry for the delay, but here is your request!!

and don't worry about it, I'd actually love to know your ideas!

and I hope this is good<3

— BOUND TO FALLING IN LOVE..

☆ summary: you hand her a poem written about her.

★ type: hcs + a short drabble!

cw: no pronouns mentioned for reader, romance, I suck at writing, yuri and reader are both obviously inlove and very shy about it, the ending sucks.

at first, she'd be shy around you since she's shy around new people.

you only started talking more to eachother when she was serving tea for the group

she could see a lot of herself in you, and that really had drawn you to her

she really didn't mind your stuttering (because she does aswell sometimes)

and she would always compliment your poems, also indulging a bit of her own style in them..

she feels so comfortable next to you, and you both really complement eachother

...

"and..i wanted to share this with you", you say as you hand her your poem.

you've been thinking about it for some time; yuri really inspired you and, in a sense, attracted you to her with her comfortably quiet and calm demeanor, always being so thoughtful and polite to others which only had drawn you more and more to her as time passed

hanging out in the club, reading novels together, enjoying some nice tea, intently listening to her as she rambles about her interests (an attitude that you thought was very cute, specially for how shy she gets when she realizes she's been rambling and, of course, you reassured her on it)

she looks at you, then at the paper in your hands as she starts connecting the dots and, of course, blushing at the way you looked at her oh so longingly.

carefully but also a being a bit eager, she takes the paper in her hands, starting to read it.

you feel a bit anxious as she does so, with many thoughts rushing through your brain.

will she like it? what if you did any spelling mistakes?! maybe your handwriting is illegible.. is she blushing???

her eyes slightly widen as she stars reading, her heart feeling warm as soon as her eyes lay upon those sweet, sweet words on the paper.

she's more than grateful! flattered! so happy about the poem!

as soon as she finishes reading, she starts smiling at you lovingly, which makes your heart skip a beat.

"this poem, it's so beautiful. i love your way of writing, the form of speech and.. do you really think of me this way?" she says.

you look at her and the only thing you want to do is hug her. kiss her and, of course.

confess your love for her, even though it's obvious, the both of you are too oblivious to it.

"I do", you say "you are amazing, and such an inspiration to me, yuri."

she can't help but be surprised..

she inspires you? how?? when?? why????

and then, you start listing it.

the many ways that she inspires you.

the way she speaks, her writing, her smart vocabulary, how she's so beautiful, polite, how she's comforting to be around, her advices on writing, and honestly everything about her

she's never felt so happy.

#🥢% writing #ddlc #ddlc x you #ddlc x reader #doki doki literature club x reader #yuri ddlc x reader #yuri x reader #yuri doki doki literature club #yuri doki doki literature club x reader

[septembersghost]

I understand the desire to not support problematic or worse, abusive celebrities, but sometimes I wish we could go back to not knowing much about these their lives. Listening to their music or watching their movies doesn’t necessarily mean you support every thing they do.

it's funny - if i may share some levity in this situation - because i saw a post about a band i adore two days ago, and the op was annoyed about fans misattributing songs to certain muses or trying to figure out who they were ~about~, and the tone was like, "can't you all just stop and focus on the music and the lyricism?" and op was well within their rights to say that, but i was laughing because...i've followed the band for as long as i've followed taylor, and somehow, not once, have i thought or wondered about or investigated who the actual subjects of their songs are. this is, imho, a neutral statement, it's totally fine that other fans do that, heaven knows i get it, but it's not how i engage with them specifically, and it hit me like, oh wow, every fandom is like this, if you get deep enough. because people are curious, and people are interested in others' stories, and fans want to feel included in that, and art (music especially) speaks so directly to us that we enjoy feeling an insightful connection to it when we're super attached to the artist. i'd never thought about it, because even though their music is profoundly important to me, my engagement level is different. it kind of gave me a perspective on how and why certain things affect us all in unique ways. and we could get into diaristic writing and the specific personality of that and the intentional creation of an invested fandom, but it's ultimately up to us how we relate to things. there are beautiful and awful aspects about many of us being very tuned in and online, and thus having a lot more access to gossip and to knowing details.

anyway, human nature is nosy lol and we also tend to hope that the artists we love align with us in some way, so it can hurt when they don't, but celebrities fundamentally can't line up with us due to the world in which they exist, which is vastly apart from our own. pedestals don't do anyone any good, and it's always a long way to fall. :( that said, there's a reason we do tackle things like abuse, misogyny, racism, prejudice, etc, and some of that is a reckoning because we've only begun to call people on it in recent memory. the entertainment industry ran unchecked on these issues for a long time. some things do indeed change with time - social mores of past decades, or centuries!, cannot be expected to match or be upheld to our own - so a lot of the question becomes, is there ongoing harm (or threat of harm) to other individuals or to vulnerable groups? if so, what can we accomplish by confronting that? can we work to break those barriers down, show that those behaviors are unacceptable, and uplift people hurt by it in the meantime? and we try to do what we can. for example, the #metoo movement is still basically a nascent thing, and we're still struggling every day to reconcile all of this and figure out how to change for the better. the fact of the matter is, we as fans are consumers with very little power to affect that. we can decide who to support and how to spend our energy/time/money, but our reach will always be limited. nothing is perfect or unproblematic. we can't expect that, but we try to keep improving.

i've said this repeatedly now, but if i needed people or art to be morally pure, there's absolutely nothing i could love and engage with ever. we read poetry and it moves us, quite often we don't know its personal inspiration. there are poems i cherish from poets who were definitely not great people. do i stop reading them, quoting them? there are films i love with actors i know weren't unimpeachable either, songs i love created by musicians with troubled pasts - should i never watch or listen to that again? is it a sin that i already have? (no.) my room is filled with items from things i'm passionate about, should i be canceled for my old hollywood movies and my cds and my disney princess figurines and my barbie dolls? (granted these are relatively tame things because of the person i am lmao. but you know what i mean?) i'm typing this on an electronic device that makes my life easier for me in my chronic illness, so does my comfort in using it make me a bad person because it comes from a bad company? like it's all so tangled and complex we'd lose our minds if we demanded complete purity at every moment. that doesn't mean we can't be very hurt by harm and bigotry, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't call things out or sit by while marginalized people are upset in our communities. again, it's all very personal boundaries and decisions of what to support and what we care about, even what we feel comfortable/safe speaking about - and a lot of the time those decisions are selfish (not a negative thing, necessarily, just true), because we care more about things that personally impact us. i try to be kind and aware and thoughtful, but i mess up or inelegantly handle things or act contradictorily too, because i'm a human.

i got off-topic, but i'm firmly of the belief that you can enjoy someone's work and artistry without condoning all of their decisions and actions, because people are always going to make mistakes or do things you disagree with. you have to draw your own lines. if i tell someone i won't engage with an artist's work because they're prejudiced or abusive, they have no right to tell me that i'm too sensitive or wrong for that, but i also can't dictate that they shouldn't do it either, that's their choice and anything else would be censorship. really horrific abuse and bigotry needs to be accounted for and stopped whenever possible, but i do wish we knew less about famous people's private lives and (often banal) commentary, and i REALLY wish we knew less about their sex lives (like nothing. i get other people like this, this is my demi self talking because i never understand the intense interest in this topic!), except that's hard to separate out when quite a lot of art is romantic and revolves around love (and i'm such a romantic, so see my conundrum here?). regardless, i do often wish there was a clearer border line between some art and artists. i do wish we could hold certain things on our own, with our individual experience and perspective, even though there's a richness and value in experiencing it as a community and in relation to an artist too.

sondheim said art isn't easy, and meant it as a creator (advancing art is easy, financing it is not, another inherent problem with art and capitalism being intertwined), but it isn't always easy for us either. he also said the art of making art is putting it together, that's what counts, and i feel we do that as individuals embracing it too.

just thinking about how blissfully happy i am not knowing a damn thing about that band because their music has unique personal meaning to me makes me wish i could magically erase a lot of information from my brain, and tbh there's a degree of privilege in that (the luxury to not know and not care isn't afforded to everyone), but it does make the experience of enjoyment much more fun and peaceful. sometimes we just want to explore art and be touched or comforted or surprised etc by it, and sometimes we just want to vibe, and sometimes we just want to love things. that's not a moral indictment, it's not a political praxis, it's not absolute agreement or condemnation of a creator. it simply is. we do need to allow ourselves more grace to enjoy art for art's sake. there is so little time or true pleasure in life. it's good to let the light in when we can.

#anonymous #letterbox #fandom discourse #sorry this became an essay

[murdockbuckley]

You reblogged me so here’s some random numbers (answer what you can because I don’t have time to stop and read them this second so I’m sorry!):

3, 18, 29, 36, 49, 60, 7

:)

3. do you share your fic ideas, or do you keep them to yourself?

generally i'd say i keep them to myself, mainly because i don't really have anyone to share them with. i absolutely post snippets and talk about them on here. but like in terms of actually sharing the plots/storyline for any of them i tend to keep to myself.

7. post a snippet of a wip. (i figured this was meant to be seventy-something but i wasn't sure)

Inserting his key and opening Bucks door Eddie stops Chris from entering, overhearing *Bucks daughter* ask Buck a question.  “Does mommy not love me anymore? Is that why I had to come and live with you?”  She's sitting on the couch, her fluffy blanket with kangaroos printed on it is wrapped around her so only her face is showing. Buck is kneeling infront of her, he would've looked less pained if someone stabbed him through the heart with a dagger. There's a children show Eddie vaguely recognises playing on the TV behind buck. “Oh no my little star.” Buck crouched to his daughter’s level as he choked back tears, heart aching over the fact his little girl feels even an ounce of the pain he grew up with. “Mommy loves you so much, she just got scared. Your Grandma was helping her so much and when she died Mommy felt like she was doing everything wrong. She’s just really sad so her brain is playing tricks on her, telling her she isn’t very good at being a parent. But she’s going to get help. And she loves you so much sweetpea.”  *his daughter* is looking at him with her mother’s big round eyes, and Buck knows that he would do anything to protect her, just like he would for Christopher.  He clears his throat to avoid his tears spilling over, “And when Mommy is better, she’ll be here straight away to see you again. I- If that’s what you would want.”  Without warning, or an answer, she slams straight into Buck. Her tiny arms wrapping around him as much as they can, squeezing impossibly tight for a six year-old. Buck just reposition's them to avoid falling as he holds her even tighter, the tears he tried so hard to keep at bay silently falling. Buck presses a gentle kiss to the top of *his daughter's* head as Eddie feels a tug on his hand. Chris looks up to Eddie in the doorway, a new understanding in his eyes. “Is that why you and Mom left at different times? Because you were both scared and sad at different times?”  Eddie doesn’t know what he did in his life to deserve a son like the one he was gifted with, “Yeah Superman, and I’m so sorry that we both left you. I know your Mom was so sorry and trying so hard to make it up to you before she died.”  Now it was Christopher’s turn to hug his Dad. “It’s okay. I forgave you both a long time ago. Just… Please don’t leave again? You or Buck, I’ll be really sad and plus we have Roo now too.”

18. do you enjoy research? which fic of yours required the most research?

i do!! i love doing research in general anyways so doing it for my fics just gives me a reason for it and stuff to actually look up rather than something random. i would probably say tainted thoughts has had the most research put into so far (this one is basically finished and will be published around valentines day!!) but i know the wip that i just wrote a quick outline for today will require a lot of research

29. what's something about your writing that you're proud of?

probably that i'm including my poetry in some of it?? i've had a lot of the poems written for ages but have been scared to share them with anyone, so actually putting them out for people to see is scary but i'm happy that i finally did it

36. what fic are you proudest of?

loneliness is the first one i've published so im really proud of that, it's almost like my baby and then i'm proud of my girldad!buck fic, it's the first multi-chapter fic i've written and the progress i'm making with it is really good

49. what fic of yours would you say is the best introduction to you as a writer?

i only have one published fic right now so i feel like i have to say loneliness

60. in letters to our soldier, what inspired the idea for the plot?

(had to pick my own one because i relaise i haven't shared the title to any of my wips)

i had read all of the teacher!buck/eddie fics i could find and then my tiktok kept showing me soldier talking about receiving letters from schools whilst they were deployed and how it made them feel. so my brain just went "wait! eddie was a soldier i bet he would have loved it if he got letter from random school kids... CHRIS IS a school child what if by some chance miracle it was chris' class that sent the letters." and because i'm incapable of writing a fic without buck i decided to add the extra drama and make buck chris' teacher.

fanfiction ask game

#lou🪼blog games #tizniz #ask game #fanfic

[smooth-boob]

⭐ !!!

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut Game

Thank you for sending this, and once again I am literally so sorry, but this is just going to be a long diary entry about The Bustle in a House, a Bridgerton fic I wrote, particularly the epilogue. My inner monologue is loud, and normally it's just me in here! Apart from being unhinged in tags, I don't post a lot of personal things on here, but I have something to say!

I feel like I talk about The Bustle in a House a lot on here, and in terms of hits/kudos/statistics, it's not one of my most popular fics (I mean, it's not shippy and it's aggressively sad, so I get it lol), but it was really a breakthrough story for me! Link at the bottom for shameless self promo, woo.

It's funny, looking at my google docs now, I guess it only took me six weeks to write, but it was literally all I thought about for those six weeks. I was scratching at the walls of my enclosure writing this thing. Apart from a couple Bridgerton one-shots and a quickly abandoned fic, I hadn't written almost anything on my own in such a long time. It was also emotionally charged and gritty and I was so impatient to get the story out but I needed to get it out the way that felt right.

Beyond that, I struggle(d) to write complete stories that aren't just scenes stitched to each other. Honestly, Bustle is still like that, but it all stitches together very nicely if I do say so myself. Still, I had been agonizing a little bit over the fact that I didn't know how the fic was going to end. I couldn't keep writing it forever...I mean, I guess I could, because it's really not that long, and there's actually more of it in my drafts, but I was trying to tell a very particular story and also have I mentioned that I am impatient? But the story didn't have an end because it's an origin story about unhealed trauma, so what was I going to do with that?

So, at least to give myself a bookend to the real story, I wrote the epilogue. I wrote it in a thirty-minute fit of inspiration one evening while tipsy on red wine, sitting at a desk in my parents' house where I'd been living for about three years because y'know, pandemic, and I was feeling trapped and burnt out and indecisive and afraid, etc. and if you read it, you might see me staring at you through Anthony, wink wink. (Quick caveat that, unlike Anthony, living with my parents was an overall loving experience at that point in my life!)

Anyway, in true Hemingway spirit, I wrote drunk, and when I went to edit sober, I was delighted that it didn't need much help. I obsessed over details, like changing scotch to whisky and then to brandy (it's sweeter, and he's so young). This is not to say that the epilogue is perfect; it's not, but it is what it needed to be.

It is a love poem of a kind for a character that hit me hard. It's a short prose poem about grief and loneliness and the 'wrong' ways to heal and it's about thinking you're at the acceptance stage of grief but really it's just depression. It's about losing parts of yourself and coming of age into something that doesn't feel right but feels inevitable, and so you stop fighting and just get on with it. It's about the before, and Anthony not knowing that he has an after and eventually, yes, years later eventually, he's going to be okay. More than okay, he's going to be happy.

(And he only has a year until Doing The Voices, and I let him be happy for at least a few nights in that! He doesn't know that he's doing the right things when taking care of his family. Not always, but more than he knows he is.)

As for me, I moved out of my parents' house and into my own newly purchased 'bachelor lodgings' (so to speak) about a month after I posted the last chapter, and I'm writing more than I have in years! Baby steps! Adult steps!

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk/therapy session. Probably no one should ask me anything else for a while lmao, who knows what will happen!

Read The Bustle in a House on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47126467

Or if you don't feel like being sad, read Doing The Voices instead: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47976274

#.braindump #i have written you...an opera...

[rjalker]

god this took an hour but here you go. The Black-Vampyre, in actually readable text.

I haven't even read it. I have no warnings to offer you until I read it tomorrow.

"how can you edit text without reading it" strategically blurring my eyes. so I could edit the Astounding Stories of Super-Science stories without getting spoiled for the very end of the thing.

The Black-Vampyre was published in 1819, and according to wikipedia and the other tumblr post I just reblogged, it's about a slave who is murdered, comes back as a vampire, and gets revenge.

what else happens? IDk. There's a really fucking long poem at the end though. this was apparently published under a pseudonym so I guess we don't actually know who wrote it.

so, it could be super racist. I'll find out tomorrow. sorry if you read it now and it turns out it is super racist. I'd like to hope the people on the original post would mention that if that were the case but. well.

anyways this is public domain. download it. please. save it. share it. email it to yourself and your friends. print it out. it's fucking readable. Here's the original PDF for your nightmarish comparison.

the names were originally in all caps like in a play, and I'll make a version without that tomorrow. but like I said. I would like to go to sleep.

enjoy. hopefully. goodnight.

The Black Vampyre;

A Legend of St. Domingo.

By Uriah Derick D’arcy

So have I seen, upon another shore, Another Lion give a grievous roar; And the last Lion thought the first—A BOAR!

-Bombast. Furios

_______

SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. NEW -YORK: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR.

1819.

TO THE

AUTHOR OF “WALL-STREET.”

MY DEAR SIR,

CHARMED with the success of your anomalous drama, which, without aspiring even to the character of nonsense, has already seen three editions, I have been myself induced to venture on publishing; with the sanguine hope of also scraping together a few shillings, in these hard times. Permit me to inscribe this tale to you, with a fellow-feeling for your lack of genius; and a fervent hope, that our names may be encircled by the same evergreen in the temple of the Muses; and that we may long flourish together, on the same pedestal, embellishing and elevating the literature of the Auction Room.

I remain, My dear Sir, Your affectionate Friend, And obedient Servant, THE AUTHOR.

Introduction

If any person should have patience to read the following narrative, and can discover the Author’s drift, it is more than he can do himself. If it be thought exquisite nonsense, it is more than the writer dares hope: and if it be pronounced simple, stupid, and unadulterated absurdity, his own private opinion will perfectly coincide with that of the public. He began to write without any fable, and before he had found any had spun out the thread of his ideas.

This tangled skein of absurdities is now exposed to criticism, from the laudable motive of showing, of how much nonsense an individual may be delivered, in the short space of two afternoons; without any excuse but idleness, or any object but amusement.

The prominent descriptions, which it is here attempted to ridicule, are fresh in the memory of all who have read the “White Vampyre;” and to those who have not, the Superstition must be so familiar, that it is unnecessary to make useless extracts.

That the Author may not, however, be misunderstood, it may be necessary to state, that in the speech of the Vampyre, he had no design of descending to that meanest of all intellectual exercises, a travestie on authors who are justly admired: but meant, if any thing, simply to show how passages, which were fine in their original use, when garbelled by the ignorant and tasteless, become a melancholy rhapsody of nonsense.

“But first on earth, as Vampyre sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent; Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race; There from thy daughter, sister, wife, At midnight drain the stream of life; Yet loathe the banquet, which perforce Must feed thy livid living corse. Thy victims, ere they yet expire, Shall know the demon for their sire; As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem. But one that for thy crime must fall, The youngest, best beloved of all, Shall bless thee with a father’s name— That word shall wrap thy heart in flame! Yet thou must end thy task and mark Her cheek’s last tinge—her eye’s last spark, And the last glassy glance must view Which freezes o’er its lifeless blue; Then with unhallowed hand shall tear The tresses of her yellow hair, Of which, in life a lock when shorn Affection’s fondest pledge was worn— But now is borne away by thee Memorial of thine agony! Yet with thine own best blood shall drip Thy gnashing tooth, and haggard lip; Then stalking to thy sullen grave, Go—and with Gouls and Afrits rave, Till these in horror shrink away From spectre more accursed than they.”

-BYRON.

The Black Vampyre

Mr. ANTHONY GIBBONS was a gentleman of African extraction. His ancestors emigrated from the eastern coast of GUINEA, in a French ship, and were sold in ST. DOMINGO remarkably cheap; as they were reduced to mere skeletons by the yaws on the passage; and all died shortly after their arrival, except one small negro, of a very slender constitution, and fit for no work whatever. The gentleman who purchased him, charitably knocked out his brains; and the body was thrown into the ocean. The tide returning in the night, it was washed upon the sands; and the moon then shining bright, the gentleman was taking a walk to enjoy the coolness of the evening; judge of his surprise, when the little corpse got up, and complaining of a pain in its bowels, begged for some bread and butter!

The PLANTER supposing his business to have been but half done, kicked him back in the water. The element seemed very familiar to him; and he swam back with much grace and agility; parting the sparkling waves with his jet black members, polished like ebony, but reflecting no sin- gle beam of light. His complexion was a dead black;—his eyes a pure white;—the iris was flame colour;—and the pupils of a clear, moonshiny lustre;—but so peculiarly constructed, that, though prominent, they seemed to look into his own head. His hair was neither curled nor straight; but feathery, like the plumage of a crow. Having paddled again on shore, he came crawling crab fashion, to the feet of Mr. PERSONNE.The latter gentleman, in considerable alarm, (not knowing whether it was Satan, Obi, or some other worthy, with whom he had to deal,) mustered up sufficient resolution, to tie a large stone round the boy’s middle: then, with a main exertion of strength, he hurled him into the sparkling ocean. He fell where the reflection of the moon was brightest, and sunk like lead; but immediately rose again like cork, perpendicularly, with the stone under his arm; while the radiant lustre of the planet retreated from his dark figure, exhibiting in its most striking contrast its utter blackness!

In this predicament, he came buoyant to land; surrounded, as he seemed, by a sphere of magic lustre. He now walked up to the Frenchman, with his arms a-kimbo, and looking remarkably fierce. Mr. PERSONNE’S particular hairs stood up on end,but being ashamed that a little negro of ten years old, should put him in bodily fear, he knocked him down. The Guinea-man rose again, without bending a joint; as fast as Mr. PERSONNE could upset him, he recovered his altitude; just like one of those small toys, fabricated from pith, tipt with lead, called witches and hobgoblins by the rising generation!

The PLANTER, in utter amazement and despair, took hold of the child by both his extremities; and pressing him to the earth, set down upon him! Then, halloing for is attendants, he ordered a tremendous fire to be kindled on the sand!! This was accordingly done. The GAUL congratulated himself on his perseverance and sagacity; and as he had never heard of ignaqueous animals, was confident that though the water fiend was so expert in his own element, he could not stand the fiery ordeal. The boy, meanwhile, lay perfectly passive, as if he had been a mere log; but presently, when the pile was all in a light blaze, with a sudden expansion, like that of a compressed Indian Rubber, he popped Mr. PERSONNE up into the air many yards, and he alighted head-foremost into the fire, where he had intended to have dedicated the sable brat, with his nine lives, to Moloch!!!

Whatever the negro was, it is notorious that Mr. PERSONNE was no salamander. He was rescued from the pyre, which, like Hercules, he had, (though unwittingly,) erected for himself; looking like a squizzed cat, and having apparently no life left in his body. The attention of the domestics was drawn entirely to their master; who soon betrayed signs of animation, though he exhibited a most awful. spectacle: being one continual sore and blister. “His whole body was one wound,” as Virgil or some other poet has hyperbolically expressed himself.

Mr. PERSONNE, when he perfectly recovered his senses, found himself in his own bed, wrapt in greasy sheets, and smarting as if in a Cayenne bath. He called for a glass of brandy,—his dear wife EUPHEMIA,—and his infant son, who had not yet been christened. His lady, with streaming eyes, presented herself before him; and, after tenderly inquiring into the state of his health, told him, (with a voice interrupted with sobs and hiccups,) that when she went in the morning to see her baby, whom she had left in the cradle, there was nothing to be seen, but the skin, hair, and nails!!! She declared that there never was such another object; except, indeed, the exsiccation in Scudder’s Museum!

On the receipt of this horrid intelligence, Mr. PERSONNE was seized with a violent spasmodic affection; and shortly after expired, muttering something about sacre, and the Guinea-negro!

The amiable, but unfortunate Euphemia, was thrown into several hysterical convulsions; as well she might be, poor woman! when her husband had been made a holocaust, and served up like a broiled and peppered chicken, to feed the grim maw of death; and her interesting infant, the first pledge of her pure and perfect love, had been precociously sucked, like an unripe orange, and nothing left but its beautiful and tender skin. The disconsolate widow caused her husband to be embalmed; and he was buried amid the lamentations and tears of all the funeral; much regretted by all who had the honour of his acquaintance, particularly by his negroes; who could not soon forget him; as he had left too many sincere marks of his regard upon their backs, to be ever obliterated from their recollections.

Time, as all the Greek tragedians, Solomon, and others have remarked, is a benevolent deity. Mrs. PERSONNE’S grief yielded to the soothing hand of the consoling power; and her bloom and spirits returned with more lustre and elasticity than they had before exhibited: as the rose, that had drooped in the fury of the passing storm, erects its blushing honours, and shows more beautiful and vivid tints, when the squall is over!

Many years after these occurrences took place, while EUPHEMIA was in second mourning for her third husband, she was indulging in the luxury of solitary grief; and reading Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and The Melancholy Poems of Dr. Farmer, in an orangerie. The refreshing breezes from the ocean, which now tempered the sultry heats of the declining day,—the soft perfume of the opening blossoms;—and the mellow tints of the evening sky, shedding that holy light, so dear to sensitive hearts, diffused a calm over her soul, wrapt in the contemplation of departed days. While lost in this pensive reverie, she perceived two strangers approaching her, in the extremity of the long vista of the grove. One of them was a coloured gentleman, of remarkable height, and deep jetty blackness; a perfect model of the CONGO Apollo. He was drest in the rich garb of a Moorish Prince; and led by the hand a pale European boy, in an Asiatic dress; whose languid countenance, slender form and tristful gait, were strongly contrasted with the portly appearance and majestic step of his conductor!

They both saluted the lovely widow, and after an interchange of compliments, accepted her polite invitation to set down, and take tea with her in the bower. She learned from the elder stranger, that he had brought out a cargo of slaves, whom his subjects had lately taken prisoners in war; and whom he had resolved to dispose of himself; as he was desirous of seeing the world. His Page, he said, was an orphan, left by a slave merchant in Africa.

The manners and conversation of the PRINCE had an irresistible charm. The regal port was manifest in his gigantic and well proportioned frame; and majesty was conspicuous on his brow, without its diadem. The turban and crescent had never graced a nobler front; but the win- ning condescension of his tones and language, while they could not banish the feeling of the presence of royalty, removed every restraint incident to that consciousness. He criticised the works, which EUPHEMIA had been perusing, with masterly precision; and displayed more knowledge than even the accomplished ideologist of Lady Morgan; with infinitely more discretion and good sense.

It is remarked by the Abbe Reynal, that there is a peculiar elegance and beauty in the complexion of the Africans, (when the eyes and nose are accustomed to their hue and odour.) This truth was realized by EUPHEMIA, as she gazed on the open visage of her illustrious guest. She thought surely that in him Nature might stand up and say “This was a man!” And certainly it is only the weakness and imperfection of our human senses, which, penetrating no further than the surface, is for ever deceived by superficial shadows. The empyrean is always blue, whatever vapours may float in our contracted atmosphere. And if we gaze on the rows of skulls, which festoon and garnish Surgeon’s Hall, we can apply no standard, to determine their relative beauty. They are all equally ugly; and the block of Helen might be mistaken for that of Medusa. Shakspeare, true to nature, has also remarked, “Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes.”

The beauty then, the royalty, gentility, and various accomplishments of the BAMBUCK monarch, made captive the too sensible heart of the French widow. She forgot her ogles, graces, and even her loquacity; rooted to her seat, and fixed in immoveable contemplation of the AFRICAN’S face. What peculiar feature or lineament attracted her attention, she knew not: his eyes, though bright, did not sparkle; and the iris, though of a more vivid red than the roseate line in the rainbow, emitted no scintillations. In fact, his whole countenance seemed to look, and to perambulate her own.

The conversation gradually assumed a more empassioned and amorous complexion; and the little page, (who, though meagre and emaciated, evidently showed that he was no gump for his years,) taking certain broad hints, cast a mournful and intelligent look on the widow, said he would fetch a short walk in the plantation, and left the orangerie.

The PRINCE then spreading his glittering sash upon the grass, went down on his knees upon it; and broke out into the most ardent exclamations, of love and admiration; and professions of constant attachment. He said that the flat-nosed beauties of Zara; the scarred, squab figures of the golden coast; the well proportioned Zilias, Calypsos, and Zamas on the banks of the Niger; and even the great Hottentot Venus herself, had never for a moment made the least impression on his heart! His passion was a mystery to himself; its origin secret as the sources of the Nile ; but full and impetuous as its ample channel, when replenished from the celestial fountains of ABYSSINIA; while if Mrs. DUBOIS would shine upon its waves, its enlivened currents would fertilize his vast dominions, in the luxuriant realms of central Africa; making them to fructify yet more abundantly, with burning gold, and radiant diamonds!!!

What female heart could resist such pleadings, and the compliment implied in such a preference? When ZEMBO (the page) returned, the parties had agreed to be privately united on the same evening. The ceremony was accordingly performed, on the spot, by the family chaplain of Mrs. DUBOIS: not without many remonstrances on his part, as to the impropriety of marrying a negro. The PRINCE did not see to resent the affront; which, by the by, he had no right to do; as the priest got nothing for the job. ZEMBO, too, was extremely restless; till Mrs. DUBOIS gave him some sweetmeats, which seemed to quiet his conscience; after which he took some stiff punch, and fell asleep!

About midnight, the PRINCE came to him; and, shaking him by the ears, bad him rise and follow him. His bride was hanging on his arm, in an enchanting dishabille; and did not seem to be in perfect possession of her right senses. ZEMBO mournfully followed the new married pair.

They went silently out of the back door, with cautious steps, and proceeded through the orangerie. No breath of wind was stirring. The moon was on the zenith, surrounded by a pale halo of ghostly lustre. When they had crossed the plantation, they came to a place of sepulture; where the dark cypresses, and lugubrious mahogany, admitted but sparse and glimmering streaks of funereal light; which, falling on the rank foliage, the white monuments and broken ground beneath, presented a thousand dusky shapes, flitting in the dim uncertainty dear to superstition.

Vague terrors seized on the mind of the bride; and she began very naturally to inquire, what was the use of getting out of a comfortable bed, and trailing through the heavy dew, in her undress, to such an unusual spot for midnight recreation.

They now stood near the spot, where her three husbands, several children, and the skin, hair and nails of her first baby, were deposited in a row. At the foot of a tamarind, lay her third son; whose christian name was SPOONER, and who died, according to the tombstone, in a fit of intoxication, aged seven years and six months. On him she had bestowed a greater share of tenderness, than any of her other offspring; and his loss had caused her most affliction. The African, making observations on the grave, began to strip himself very expeditiously, assisted by ZEMBO; who seemed to recover from his blues; and by his activity and eagerness, manifested his expectation of soon seeing some fine sport.

Presently the two genii, or gentlemen, or whatever they were, turned towards the East, and performed certain antic prostrations; throwing handfuls of earth three times over their heads. Then returning to the tomb, they tore up the sods with ravenous fury; and soon drew out the last- mentioned son of the Lady, and threw him on the grass, beside the grave. ZEMBO fell as fiercely upon the corpse, as a hungry dog upon his dinner; but was arrested by the AFRICAN, who lent him a severe box on the ear, which sent him blubbering to a corner of the cemetery.

What added both to the mother’s horrors and admiration, was, that the body of her child was perfectly fresh, and the olfactory nerves experienced no unsavoury sensation from its proximity; while its cheeks were diffused with so deep a tinge of scarlet, that they shone like ruddy fireballs in the darkness of the spot. Her husband drew a golden goblet from beneath a large stone; then, bending over the corse, he scooped out the heart, with his long and polished nails; and, having pressed the blood into the chalice, mingled with it some dark particles, gathered from the newly turned up earth. From the pure and scanty lymph, which gushed near by and flickered like a streak of quicksilvery-light in the moonbeam, he added a third ingredient of the potion. Then seizing his passive and trembling spouse by the throat, and presenting the unnatural mixture to her lips; he cried in a hollow voice, whose very inflection thrilled through each fibre of its victim,—“Swear, or if that is against your principles, affirm, by this dirty blood,—and bloody dirt;—by this watery blood,—and bloody water;—by this watery dirt, and dirty water;—that you will never disclose in any manner, aught of what you have seen and shall see this night. Call them all to witness your wish, that in the moment when you even conceive the thought of perjury, your bowels may burst out, and your bones rot! Swear and drink!”

The affrighted woman murmured, (as articulately as the iron gripe of the monster would suffer her,) that she was not thirsty; and had not breath enough to aspirate such a terrible conjuration. “No trifling;” roared the fiend, “you have not a moment to deliberate.” But his bellowing and threats were vain; and he found to his mortification that he had gotten the wrong sow by the ear, or rather by the throat. She stuttered out, in the most pitiful accents, which would have softened any heart (but a Vampyre has none,) that though she was by no means partial to the delectable confectionary of the pharmacopeia, calomel and jalap, ipecacuanha, rhubarb, and tartar-emetic, she would rather take them all, collectively and individually, than the unchristian decoction he held against her teeth.

Foaming with madness, till the white slaver flowed down his sable limbs, the African hurled MRS. PERSONNE, DUBOIS, &c. &c. on the grave of her first husband, and stamping violently on the earth, it seemed to heave as with the throes of an earthquake. Immediately the tumuli yawned. The ponderous stones and slabs were shaken from their ancient sockets; and the ghastly dead, in uncouth attitudes, crawled from their nooks; with their hair curling in tortuous and serpent twinings; and their eyeballs of fire bursting from their heads; while, as they extended their withered arms, and tapering fingers, furnished with blood-hound claws, their gory shrouds fell in wild drapery around them, transiently revealing their forms, bloated as if to bursting, and often incarnadined with clotted blood, yet warm and dripping!!!

The Lady, (as those who have been in similar predicaments may suppose,) soon lost her recollection; not, however, before she had seen ZEMBO busily employed in tearing up the grave of her first husband; she saw herself surrounded by the spectres, and lost all consciousness.

When reason and sense returned, she found herself in the same place; and it was also the midnight hour. She was laying by the grave of Mr. PERSONNE, and her breast was stained with blood. A wide wound appeared to have been inflicted there, but was now cicatrized. Imagine if you can, her surprise; when, by a certain carniverous craving in her maw, and by putting this and that together, she found she was a—VAMPYRE!!! and gathered from her indistinct reminiscences, of the preceding night, that she had been then sucked; and that it was now her turn to eject the peaceful tenants of the grave!

With this delightful prospect of immortality before her, she began to examine the graves, for subject to a satisfy her furious appetite. When she had selected one to her mind, a new marvel arrested her attention. Her first husband got up out his coffin, and with all the grace so natural to his countrymen, made her a low bow in the last fashion, and opened his arms to receive her!

What were the emotions of this fond couple, when, after a lingering separation for sixteen years, they again embraced each other, with the ardour of an affection equal to their earliest transports, and which their long divorce served only to increase; tenderly inquiring into the state of each other’s health; and the accidents which had befallen them during their disjunction. They forgot even their hunger and thirst; and sitting down on a tombstone, made a thousand inquiries; which, however, they related to family concerns, might not be as interesting to the reader as they were to the parties concerned.

Mr. PERSONNE, however, looked rather glum, when he learned that his Lady had been thrice married, since his decease. But she assured him, that she would never more tolerate the addresses of another suitor: and as for the two husbands, they were rotten enough by this time; as she was confident they had not attended the Vampyre Ball, on the preceding night. As for her sable spouse, she trusted that he would never again appear to interrupt their happiness. But while she was expressing this hope, the gentleman in question, (like his relation below, according to the old proverb,) came upon the ground, with ZEMBO. Mr. PERSONNE, having neither sword nor pistols at hand, armed himself with a gigantic thigh-bone; and warned the BLACK PRINCE to stand upon his guard as he meant to punish him severely.

But ZEMBO, rushing between the parties, raised his hands in a supplicating posture; while the generous monarch, making a Salam to his antagonist, begged him, keep himself quiet, and look behind him. They both turned round on this intimation, when, to the utter confusion of the Lady, her second and third husbands, Messieurs MARQUAND and DUBOIS, arose from the graves, where they had been lovingly deposited by the side of each other. They both advanced to salute their wife; but Mr. PERSONNE, brandishing his thigh-bone, warned them to stand off, as he had the first title to the Lady. Much confusion would have ensued, had not the African Prince interfered. He told the gentlemen that so delicate a point could only be settled in an honourable way; and proposed that Mr. MARQUAND and Mr. DUBOIS should first settle their difference in a personal encounter; after which Mr. PERSONNE might give the survivor gentlemanly satisfaction. To this all parties assented.

As they were already stripped, the combatants shook hands, to show their mutual good-will; and proceeded to action, without further ceremony. Mr. DuBois soon brought claret from Mr. MARQUAND; who, in returning the compliment, fibbed Mr. DUBOIS so severely in the bowels, that he lost his wind; and gasping for breath, smote the air on all sides, without any of his blows telling. He came to the ground, and his bones rattled as he fell. But soon recovering his breath, he made a desperate attack on Mr. MARQUAND’S sconce; and favoured him with so terrible a facer under the gills, that he fell incontinently like a bull smitten in his front; but entangling his own heels with those of Mr. DUBOIS, they both came simultaneously to the ground; striking their heads against different tombstones; and knocking out their own brains.

They rose again, refreshed like the giant of old, by their grappling with the earth, and all the better for the loss of their wits, which, indeed, was a mere trifle. But the AFRICAN, who had no time to see more sport, fixed them to the sod by his superior strength; and ZEMBO dexterously pinned them fast, by driving stakes through their hearts, with a large sledge hammer, (which he carried about his person for such emergencies.) During the opera- tion, their roaring surpassed that which is performed by the Lioness, when bereft of her whelps; but as soon as they were fairly nailed to the counter, they lay motionless and breathless—a horrible pair of spectacles of sin and misery!

The AFRICAN assured the Lady, that she need never fear their second resurrection; and Mr. PERSONNE politely offered to settle their controversy, in any mode most agreeable to the PRINCE:—either to box with him on the spot, or appoint a meeting in future, with pistols, rifles, small or broad sword; or else they might toss up, who should set fire to a barrel of gunpowder. The PRINCE said that quarrelling was all nonsense, and offered his hand; but Mr. PERSONNE refused, saying, “Don’t be too familiar, Blackey;” and renewing his threats of cracking him over the noddle with the thigh-bone.

The generous monarch pocketed the affront. “You have been,” he said, “sufficiently rewarded, for the cruelties you practised upon my person, several years ago. I forgive you, my dear sir, what you performed, and intended to perform on me. Here is your son, who has grown considerably, as you may observe; and I assure you that his education has not been neglected. To his exertions last night you are indebted for your revivification. And as, you may remember, you were embalmed, you have kept quite sweet and fresh ever since your interment. Amiable and virtuous VAMPYRES! may you long enjoy that tranquillity and contentment, which your merit and accomplishments so eminently deserve! A vessel lies in the port, ready to sail for Europe in an hour. The Island is no longer a place for you. Here is money to pay your passages, and all I have to say, is, that the sooner you’re off the better.—Farewell!” So saying he departed, without waiting for the acknow- ledgments of the party.

Mr. PERSONNE and his Lady, whom we shall again call by her first marriage name, did not exactly comprehend what their dingy benefactor meant, by bidding them take French leave of the Island, like pickpockets and outlaws; but, as they were yet wondering at their own existence, like Adam and Eve, the first day of their creation, and as they had reason to believe the PRINCE a potent magician, who could rouse the dead from their searments, and turn the planets from their courses;—for these reasons, they concluded to follow his bidding, without any impertinent scruples. But as the keen edge of their hunger had been whetted by delay, they would fain have taken supper, and digested a little something wherewithal to strengthen them, before they set out.

ZEMBO, who had filled his own breadbasket very lately, and was in no such urgent necessity, protested with all the vehemence which filial reverence would permit, against the unseasonable gratification of their unnatural craving; and recited with just emphasis and good discretion, an extract from Counsellor Phillips’s harangue, about “the cannibal appetite of his rejected altar;” which his parents did not understand, and of course thought very sublime! But even this master-piece of mystical eloquence would have been delivered in vain; had not the boy given other reasons of such cogency, that they licked their lips—cast a longing, lingering look at the grave-yard,—and followed him without more opposition.

They prosecuted their nocturnal march, through closely woven and solemn groves; until they descended into a profound valley, where the light of the pale planet of magic adoration, streamed and quivered on serried files of bright armoury. The leader of the band seemed to have expected their arrival; and mutual tokens of recognition passed between him and ZEMBO. The whole company then set forward their array in silence;—

No cymbal clash’d, no clarion rang, Still were the pipe and drum; Save heavy tread, and armour’s clang, The sullen march was dumb.

By continual descent, they seemed to have penetrated the bowels of a cavern, whose ramifications ran under the sea; as they heard a murmuring roar, as of the ocean, above their heads. The party, by the instructions of ZEMBO, dispersed themselves in different directions; until they had enclosed the interior of the rock where its largest chamber was, to speak catachrestically, so artfully concealed by nature, that no one, not instructed by an adept in its subterranean topography, could ever have detected the secret of its existence. It had been, in former days, a place of deposit and asylum for the Buccaniers; and its situation had been since known only to the Professors of the OBEAH art, who held here their midnight orgies.

Mr. and Mrs. PERSONNE, guided by their son, were placed in a situation, where, through the crevices of the inner partition of the rock, they could observe what was passing in the interior.

It seemed, at first view, a vast hall of Arabian romance; supported by immense shafts, and studded with precious stones; so various and beautiful were the hues, which the different spars assumed, in the light of an hundred torches, blazing in every quarter, and illuminating the farthest recesses of the cave. The walls were decorated with other appendages, which added to the mystery, if not to the embellishment of the scene; being irregularly stained with blood; decorated with rude tapestry of many coloured plumage;—and stuccoed with the beaks of parrots;—the teeth of dogs, and alligators;—bones of cats;—broken glass and eggshells; plastered with a composition of rum and grave-dirt, the implements of NEGRO witchcraft!

At one extremity of the extensive apartment, on a kind of natural throne, sat several blackamoors in sumptuous Moorish apparel; whom, by their swollen forms, and remarkable eyes, Mrs. PERSONNE knew to be GOULS; and among whom she recognised her late husband. The whole range of this vast amphitheatre, sweeping from before the throne, was occupied by slaves, rudely attired, and imperfectly armed with clubs and missiles; a decent platoon of black-guards were posted be- fore the Vampyre monarchs; and, in the centre, a band of musicians performed an exquisite symphony. The soft strains of the MERRIWANG;—the lively notes of the DUNDO;—and the martial accompaniment of the GOOMBAY, made, with their united noises, a discordant harmony, whose powers the lyre of Orpheus could not equal; and which would certainly be enough to frighten all the hosts of Pandemonium.

The oratorio being finished, the AFRICAN PRINCE arose, and making an obeisance to the company,—cleared his throat, and began to address them as follows:—“Gentlemen and Vampyres!”—but the VAMPYRES expressing their resentment against this breach of etiquette, he corrected himself: —“Vampyres and Gentlemen!”—but the NEGROES were no more willing to come last, than the Vampyres, and a loud growl accompanied by a slight hiss, again interrupted the orator. He was not, however, disconcerted, but like Mr. Burke, thundered out an iteration of the offensive sentence.

“Yes,” said he, “I repeat it, Vampyres and Gentlemen? Shall not the immortal precede the mortal?— Shall not those whose diet surpasses the nectar and ambrosia of celestials, precede the ephemeral race, who fatten on the unclean juice of brutes,—the rank essence of esculent productions,—or the nauseous liquor of the distillery? (applause—hear! hear! and see-boy! from the Vampyres—groans from the negroes!) Gentlemen of colour! I appeal to yourselves; shall not the descendants of the Gods be named before the offspring of the earth-born image, whom Titan impregnated with celestial fire?—For Prometheus was the first Vampyre. You must all know, as you have undoubtedly read Æschylus, that the vulture, who preyed on his liver, was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. He is called a dog, which makes him a quadruped;—he is represented as ερπωυ, creeping, which proves him an insect; and is said to have wings, which shows that he was a bird. Now, from this amphibious monster have descended the Crows,—the Jackalls,—and the Bloodhounds;—the pirate Bat of Madagascar,—and the man-killing Ivunches of Chili;—the Sharks;—the Crocodiles;—the Krakens;—the Horse-leeches;—the Cape-cod Sea Serpents;—the Mermaids;—the Incubi;—and the Succubi!!! (loud cheering from the Vampyres.) From Titan himself, descended the Cy- clopes, and all other ancient and modern Anthropophagi; and, in lineal descent, the Moco tribe of our own EBOES, to whom I have the honour of being related. Those of you, too, are his posterity, who, after your deaths, return to your native land—the true Elysium; where the balmy bowl of the Coco, the soft bloom of the ANANA, and the coal-black beauties of the clime of love, shall for ever reward your fortitude, and steep in forgetfulness the memory of your wrongs. (hear! hear! from the negroes.) But none of these genera or species of our order, must longer engage your dignified and charitable attention. I come to ourselves, full- blooded—unadulterated—immortal bloodsuckers!—To ourselves—whether Gouls,—or Afrits,—or Vampyres;— Vroucolochas,—Vardoulachos,—or Broucolokas—To ourselves—the terror of the living and of the dead, and the participants of the nature of both;—To ourselves—the emblems at once of corruption and of vitality;—blotted from the records of existence, and replenished to repletion with circulating life;—abandoned by the quick, and unrecognised by the dead:—‘at once relics and relicts;— rocked on the bases of our own eternities;—the chronicles of what was—the solemn and sublime mementoes of what must be!’ unqualified approbation from both sides of the house.)

“The estate of Vampyrism is a fee-tail, and may be docked in two different ways. The first mode is the sanguinary practice of perforating the subject with a stake; and this is final. The other is produced by the gentler operation of the narcotic potion you behold in this phial; by whose lenient and opiate influence, the individual is restored to the plight, in which he was previous to his death, or his becoming a Vampyre, and belongs to the OBEAH mysteries.

“But to come to the object of our present meeting. Sublime and soul-elevating theme!—The emancipation of the Negroes!—The consecration of the soil of ST. DOMINGO to the manes of murdered patriots in all ages!—No matter whether the bill of sale was scrawled in French or in English;—No matter whether we were taken prisoners, in a battle between the LEOPHARES and the JAKOFFS, or in a skirmish between the SAMBOES and the SAWPITS;—No matter whether we were bought for calico and cotton, or for gunpowder or for shot;—No matter whether we were transported in chains or in ropes—in a brig, or a schooner, or a seventy-four—the first moment we come ashore on ST. DOMINGO, our souls shall swell like a sponge in the liquid element;—our bodies shall burst from their fetters, glorious as a curculio from its shell;—our minds shall soar like the car of the æronaut, when its ligaments are cut; in a word, O my brethren, we shall be free!—Our fetters discandied, and our chains dissolved, we shall stand liberated,—redeemed,— emancipated,—and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION!!!” (Unparalleled bursts of unprecedented applause!!!)

Such was the report of this oration, taken down in short hand by ZEMBO; of whose extraordinary sagacity so many proofs have been exhibited; and who was never unprovided with materials for any emergency. The fiery oratory of the Prince communicated such inspiration to the auditors, that the whole mass of their thick blood leaped up with the quickening pulse of anticipated freedom; they danced and sung, with violent gesticulations, like perfect Corybantes; but unfortunately, their Phyrricks were interrupted by the glittering bayonets of the soldiery; who poured in upon them from every quarter, and hemmed them in, with a bristling chevaux-de-frise of steel. The Vampyres, surprised but undaunted, unsheathed their sabres, and drew up in a gallant style, as if determined to die game; being, indeed, assured, that like so many Phœnixes, they would rise from their own ashes, as often as they might be cut down.

A desperate conflict ensued, during which Mrs. PERSONNE observed the phial, mentioned by the Prince, lying on the ground; and very thoughtfully put it in her ridicule. The slaves, seeing how the business was likely to terminate, prudently sneaked off, while the attention of the military was occupied by the Vampyres. The former were violently exasperated to find all their labour so unprofitable; since while they themselves were wounded by every blow of their opponents, the latter, like so many ninepins, were set up, as fast as they were bowled down; bending to the storm, like masts on a tempestuous ocean, and rising again upon the billow in perpendicular triumph.

But, being instructed by ZEMBO, the soldiers pinioned them as fast as they fell; and prevented their rising, by sitting in great numbers on their bodies; though the task was somewhat like that of detaining quicksilver beneath the fingers. The PRINCE, however, still fought desperately. Brandishing a huge scimitar in either hand, he swayed his arms like the sails of a windmill; while limbs, heads, and bodies flew about him, curvetting and dancing in the air; as when the ingenious Mr. MAFFEY pulls to pieces a coach, or an old woman, children, chickens, friars, and petticoats dance about in wild confusion, till the artist’s hand again brings order out of chaos:—Or, as when the renowned knight of the BED-CHAMBER, whose name eternal vases shall record, saw the ungenerous caricature on the wall, wielding a ponderous jug, he smote the innocent tables, chairs, and bed-posts, and strode victorious over the gory field: So fought the PRINCE; till being neatly pricked in the spine, unexpectedly, he soused (as Johannes Porco Latinus remarks) “in principia fundimentalia,” and was immediately set upon by a host. So when a Gœtulian lion is pierced by the light bamboo, overpowered by the hunters, he struggles in his thrall like an Enceladus under Ætna, and dies at last with heart-wrung tears of anguish, and re- verberating roars of hatred!!!

Stakes were immediately procured, and the whole infernal fraternity securely disposed of: as their compeers, described by Homer,

With burning chains fixed to the brazen floors And lock’d by hell’s inexorable doors.

With their bellowings, the vast chambers of the subterranean rung like the caverns of Delphos, when the inflammable air was fired by the crafty priests. The Inhabi- tants of the Island started up from their slumbers in shuddering terror, and believed that an earthquake was rumbling beneath their feet.

Mr. and Mrs. PERSONNE and ZEMBO lost no time in trying the effects of the African’s stolen prescription. Being thrown into a tranquil slumber they were conveyed to their plantation; and awoke the next morning, perfectly well, excepting slight colds in the head. Mr. PERSONNE, having been in statu quo, for sixteen years, was now much younger than his lady; a circumstance, for which she was not at all sorry; and which he himself declared by no means displeased him. The remainder of their life was serene as a tropic night; —illumined by the mild effulgence of domestic love;—fanned by the soft aspirations of peaceful bosoms;—and enlivened by the fire- fly scintillations of rapture!!!

ZEMBO, to whose taste and ingenuity they were indebted for their happiness, and who was baptized with the Christian name of BARABBAS, after an uncle of his mother’s, recorded what the reader has perused. One only circumstance, like one of those claps of thunder, frequently heard in the unclouded sky, passed over the tranquillity of their bosoms. Mrs. PERSONNE’S fourth husband’s child was a mulatto, and of Vampyrish propensities; of which his mother and Mr. PERSONNE were never able entirely to cure him, having used up all the African’s preparation.

The intelligent reader, (if any such there be,) will remember that this narrative commenced with the name of Mr. ANTHONY GIBBONS, of whom nothing has since been said; and whose adventures (to use a FORUM trope) “must remain buried in the bowels of futurity,” until a more convenient opportunity. He is a lineal descendant from the last-mentioned mulatto; and the manuscript, which is now given to the public, was transmitted to him from his ancestors. He is a resident in Essex county, New- Jersey; and candour requires us to state, that he is no relation to his celebrated namesake at ELIZABETH- TOWN; as it is notorious to all who have had the pleasure of witnessing the size of the latter gentleman’s waist, that he has too much bowels for so diabolical a profession; and it is to be hoped in charity, that though he is such a delicate morsel, when he is laid in the sepulchre of his fathers, he may not prove a titbit, to GLUT THE THIRST OF A VAMPYRE!!!

Moral.

N this happy land of liberty and equality, we are free from all traditional superstitions, whether political, religious, or otherwise. Fiction has no materials for machinery;—Romance no horrors for a tale of mystery. Yet in a figurative sense, and in the moral world, our climate is perhaps more prolific than any other, in enchanters,—Vampyres,—and the whole infernal brood of sorcery and witchcraft.

The accomplished dandy, who in maintaining his horses,—his taylor, &c.—absorbs in the forced and unnatural excitement of his senseless orgies, the life-blood of that wealth which his prudent Sire had accumulated by a long devotion to the counter,—What is he but a Vampyre?

The fraudulent trafficker in stock and merchandize, who, having sucked the whole substance of an hundred honest men, is consigned for a few weeks to the sepulchre of the jail; and then, by the potent magic of an insolvent law, stalks forth, triumphant with bloated villany, more elated in his shameless resurrection to renew his career of iniquity and of disgrace,—what is he but a Vampyre?

The corrupted and senseless Clerk, who being placed near the vitals of a moneyed institution, himself exhausted to feed the appetite of sharpers, drains, in his turn, the coffers he was appointed to guard,—is he not, I appeal to the Stockholders,—is he not a Vampyre?

Brokers, Country Bank Directors, and their disciples—all whose hunger and thirst for money, unsatisfied with the tardy progression of honest industry, by creating fictitious and delusive credit, has preyed on the heart and liver of public confidence, and poisoned the currents of public morals, are they not all Vampyres?

The whole tribe of Plagiarists, under every denomination;—The Critic, who. by eviscerating authors, and stuffing his own meagre show of learning with the pilfered entrails, ekes out his periodical fulmination against public taste;—the Forum Orator, who, without compunction, barbarously exenterates Burke, and Curran, and Phillips,—the Second- handed Lawyer,—Scholar,—Theologue,—who quote from quotations, and steal stolen property:—the Divine, who preaches Tillotson and Toplady;—what are they all but Vampyres?

The Empiric, who fills his own stomach, while he empties his shop into the bowels of the hypochondriac;—the Bibliopolist, “who guts the fobs” of the whole reading community, by ascribing to Lord Byron works which that author never saw; the philanthropic Contractor for the Army, who charges more for lime and horse-beef, than his quantum- meruit for the best provisions; who sets up his carriage and his palace, by blistering the mouths and destroying the intestines of thousands,— what are these but Vampyres?

The Professors and Disciples of Surgeon’s Hall, who, when a fine fat corse is rolled out of the resurrectionist’s budget, set up a howl of horrible transport, like he anthropophagous Caribs in Robinson Crusoe;—glut their gloating eyes with the pinguidity and unctuousness of the subject; and whet their blades like Shylock, impatient to attack the ilia,—what are they but Vampyres?

And I, who, as Johnson said of an hypochondriac Lady, “have spun this discourse out of my own bowels,” and made as free with those of others—I am a VAMPYRE!

Vampyrism; a poem

Utrum horum mavis accipe.

SOLOMON LANG & LAUNCELOT LANG - STAFF, Esquires.

GENTLEMEN, FROM the Gazette of August 17th, I am happy to learn, that you have entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive. The ties of kindred and the attraction of sympathy, one would think, ought to have brought about this union much sooner. You are, I believe, of one family;—although I am ignorant from whence LAUNCELOT has taken the Agnomen of STAFF: and I am equally unable to divine, why you have both docked the Nomen of your ancestors, which hath been written LANGEARS from time immemorial. Whatever may be your reasons for disowning your consanguinity to the great GENTILE family, the literary and political worlds rejoice, at least, in this consolidation of the talents of their two most distinguished members. The parity of intellect,—the similarity of taste,—the pungency of sarcasm possessed by both parties, justify the expectations formed by the public, from this conjunction of two such great luminaries. Both are imbued with that modest confidence, connected with the consciousness of superior talent. SOLOMON is formed, perhaps, of more impenetrable stuff: LAUNCELOT has more of the irritability and exquisite sensibility of genius.—Ira quidem communiter urit utrumque; but SOLOMON taketh the driest knocks with a good grace; LAUNCELOT is sooner thrown into a fever, and frets, to use a classic quotation of his own, “like a bear, with a sore head.”—SOLOMON is the better grammarian: LAUNCELOT hath, occasionally, greater command of language. Solomon, as he states, composes ideas and types simultaneously, a la mode de Wooler; Launcelot has the advantage of seeing his ideas embodied in black and white, in their flight from his brains to the printing office.— LAUNCELOT the FIERY, may be likened to the mad ORESTES: SOLOMON the PATIENT, to the faithful PYLADES.— SOLOMON is original in his own way: LAUNCELOT purloins from Swift, and Rabelais and others.—SOLOMON, pilloried in his own press, with no ally but the gray mare, bravely receives the missiles of the whole legion of editors; LAUNCELOT has only to open his mouth, or saw the air, or make a leg, on the literary stage; and all the gods of the Philadelphia gallery, pipe their shrill catcalls in discordant unison.—The castigation of both is equally dreadful. SOLOMON, with his “Good morning, Mr. Coleman,” and “Rot the sarpent,” condenses all his wrath into a laconic sarcasm: LAUNCELOT elaborates books, to the great terror and discomfiture of Gifford, Southey, and Scott. The Quarterly Reviewers received a death blow, because they could not find out the wit of the Scottish Fiddle; and the translator of Juvenal has never dared to show his face, since Mr. LANGSTAFF promulgated to the world, the secret of his origin. Poor Mr. Hall, the editor of the Port Folio,— because he criticised that Poem, (than which, in the language of Croaker, “nothing can be flatter or funnier;”) according to the canons of Martinus Scriblerus,—said Hall has been severely bemauled for his temerity. Many a heart-burning hath he experienced, from the caustic of Salmagundi Redivivus—Godwot!—magni nominis umbra!—On the whole, “none but yourselves can be your parallels.”

Allow me to dedicate the following rhymes to your firm; which will, I have no doubt, stand secure, amid all the present wreck of matters, and crashes of credit. Profound ignorance, bolstered by vanity, sits firmly on it own fundamental principles. Farewell, Gentlemen, accept the considerations of my high esteem—

Fortunati ambo—si quid mea carmina possunt, Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet aevo!

-URIAH DERICK D’ARCY.

VAMPYRISM;

A POEM,

I.

IN this blest land, where valour burst The links which bound his children erst, And rent the vail whose darkness hid Legitimacy’s monstrous creed;— Where all that since the world began Had sway’d the sacred rights of man, With ancient dreams had past away, And bare in all its weakness lay;— Here reason, in triumphal hour, Asserted too her conquering power: From mountain, valley, plain and flood, She exorcised the shadowy brood

II.

When freshening gales had swept the mists, That wildly wreath’d the mountain crests, No cloudy spectre o’er the storm Reveal’d the terrors of his form;— When evening breezes curl’d the wave No wraiths disturb’d the wandering brave,— When lost in darkness, down the side Of craggy mount their path they tried, And stunn’d by torrents deafening roar, Downward were hurl’d, to rise no more; Men said their balance they had lost, But never laid it to a ghost.

III.

No more, around the guarded gold, Their wake were pirates seen to hold;— No elves the midnight circle tript; No fairies lunar vigils kept; Genii nor devils rose—except, Indeed, that once in godly Salem, Blue laws and preachings seem’d to fail ’em; Bed bugs and rats their slumbers broke, On Beelzebub they laid the joke; Took brandy to expel the fiend, Which answered quite another end! Old ladies then to swim were taught, In amorous league with Satan caught;— And some were hang’d:—but now no more ’Tis fit to rake up that old sore.

IV.

Of late the pole its fiends has sent, The ‘tarnal Yankees to torment; By water witchcraft long distrest, In vain with all their might they guest; Till when their gumption seem’d to fail One captain got him by the tail; But metamorphos’d, (such their story,) The wizard gave the man the go-by Turn’d out a tunny fish to be, The “shallowest monster” of the sea.

V.

And now they swear with might and main, That Monsieur Tonson’s come again: And Marshal Prince, his wife and daughters, Off Nahant, saw him walk the waters. The coachman there and Mrs. Prince Got at the odd fish several squints; But Mr. Prince, for weak his eye was, Look’d at him through a mast-head spy-glass; And took, lest men his word should doubt, An ugly likeness of his snout, With all the bumps the monster bore— He says, thirteen—his wife, two more.

VI.

In Morristown we’ve heard a ghost Wrought wonders to the people’s cost. ’Tis not long since, on New Year’s night, The devil gave three bad boys a fright; Who o’er their whiskey took to cursing, Spoke disrespectfully of his person, His government began to libel, And on the back-log put the bible.— But these things are of little moment, Unworthy of a further comment.

VII.

Yet SUPERSTITION! though thy throne Be rear’d in wilds and woods alone, Where the rude wanderer of the glen Invokes the souls of martial men;— Adores the torrent thundering loud; Calls on the spirits of the cloud;— And o’er the black and bursting heaven, Sees Ariouski’s chariot driven;— Yet, queen of terror’s sheetedband! Fiends worse than thine affright our land, While, stalking from their ghastly homes, The VAMPYRE host infuriate roams!

VIII.

Behold that EXQUISITE divine, Fit to hang up for fashion’s sign. In classic mould his wig is shear’d— SO SAUNDERS says—by all rever’d— (Yet much, with deference, due I doubt If Saunders’ science could make out Apollo’s nob, if slic’d off well, From J—n G. B—t’s bust to tell— Both are stuck up in the Academy— Yet for this query think not bad o’ me.) But to the Dandy—’neath his chin Hog’s bristles fiercely fence him in; One corset back his shoulders throws; His bowels other bones enclose; His ample chest is bullet proof, With cotton cram’d and such like stuff; And for his clothes—but here’s enough. For ere the printer’s tardy imp, Shall bid in type this doggrel limp, The swifter ninth part of a man Shall change the passing mode again; And waists now short shall then be long. All that’s now right shall then be wrong!

IX.

How came that puppy by his gig? What taught him how to look so big? For this behind the measur’d board His father scrap’d the growing hoard— Like him the pyramids who rear’d, To leave behind no name rever’d For, on the bowels of the heap, His revels shall this Vampyre keep; Till vigils late—and generous wine, And—things that suit no lay of mine; Have left him soon to die and rot, Be laugh’d at, pitied, and forgot! His species and his line to trace, And count the honours of his race, Let Mr. Wynkoop soar as high, As Scythia’s Cynocephali, And Mr. Langstaff dive as low As he, and he alone, can go;” Let this quote Greek—that crack stale jokes, The theme is worthy of such folks.

X.

Lo! thro’ the bustling world of trade, What monsters march in long parade; Gorg’d with the substance of a host, Swelling they strut with empty boast; The bubble burst, and credit fled, The money’d quack proclaims them dead;— Bailiffs in haste the corpse escort;— The turnkey says his service short;— Awhile in jail their bones repose, Till lo! the dungeon doors unclose! Insolvent laws, with potent spell, Have wrought the wondrous miracle; Their words of might the dead restore; And even more bloated than before, From that deep sepulchre, to prey On all the gudgeons in his way, Of shameless resurrection vain, The VAMPYRE BANKRUPT stalks again!

XI.

Temples of Mammon! O beware What priests the golden chalice bear! And let not hands profane approach The tempting, costly shrines to touch! Have we not seen what secret stealth Has suck’d the vitals of your wealth, When the weak dupe, quite drain’d himself, Grew hungry for the luscious pelf; Nor did his secret orgies end, Till fail’d a whole year’s dividend. And now once more in open air, Have we not seen the Vampyre pair, Stalk forth, from jails and juries free, In all the pride of infamy?

XII.

O HERMES of these latter times, I hail thee in unworthy rhymes! Great ALCHYMIST, whose art alone Has found the philosophic stone! Thou arch magician! to whose hand Alone is given the hazel wand, That finds the veins of glittering ores, Great DOUSTERSWIVEL of conjurors! What though thine art itself despair, And all the pageant fade in air? While harmless mobs thy doors assail, And blustering butchers curse and rail, Above thine own Flaminian roll’d, Shall thy triumphal chariot hold Its course majestical along, Before the whole admiring throng!

XIII.

O JACOB! JACOB! thou art keen, As thy great namesake;—him, I mean. Who manag’d for himself to keep The best of crafty Laban’s sheep. Immortal VAMPYRE of our age! O might this unassuming page Be read by all, whose fobs must bleed, Thy ravenous appetite to feed Behind thy coach and four might I Roll in an humbler tilbury; Beneath thy wings might D’ARCY’s name Soar to the solar blaze of fame!

XIV.

Plumb from the giddy height I fall, Amid whole herds of Vampyres small, CRITICS, who worn out common place With Author’s pilfer’d entrails grace; The FORUM spouter—barbarous Turk! Who rips up Curran, Phillips, Burke, And thunders forth bombastic centos, Of wasted time the sad mementoes; All those who QUOTE at second hand, And what they quote don’t understand; The PARSON who in sleepy tone Evangelizes Tillotson; All PLAGIARISTS,—concise to be,— Are GOULs of high or low degree.

XV.

The QUACK with brick dust who provides, Wherewith to line his own insides; Who fills up all his hungry chinks, While to a ghost his patient shrinks; THOMAS who vends as Byron’s own The works of doggrelists unknown; Honest CONTRACTORS, who are able To cheat both government and rabble; Who, worthy of the scourge and gallows, Set up their equipage and palace; While blister’d mouths deep curses pour And tortur’d soldiers writhe and roar, Who eat the beef of horses dead, And craunch corroding lime for bread— These, as the sufferers all agree, Are of the GOULE fraternity.

XVI. There are whose tongues around them throw The gall with which their hearts o’erflow, Like those from old Medusa’s head, Where’er its venom’d drops are shed, Earth’s verdure fades;—rank poison springs; Snakes hiss, and dragons spread their wings. Pale Dian’s hopeless votary old, Crabb’d, ancient dames, and bachelors cold, Nay e’en the blooming maid—will hie To the foul feast of calumny; On wisdom, worth, and reverend age, Beauty and wit, they glut their rage; And fondly hope, that as they tear The limbs of murder’d character, Their own fair fame shall prouder swell, Fatten’d upon the feast of hell!

XV.

There is a spot, unknown to fame, Where Vampyres haunt their hold of shame When ENVY left her noxious cave, Along Passaic’s winding wave, (Though Ovid has this fact forgot,) She linger’d by one cherish’d spot; She left her benediction here, The ground became for ever sere; Infected by her scatter’d slime And tainted to all after time; Whoever tastes its baleful food, A Vampyre longs to feed on blood— The blood of honour, virtue free, Fame, confidence and chastity!

XVIII.

But wouldst thou, in thy purpose bold The demon orgies foul behold— Mark where the SONS of SURGEON’S HALL, Upon their foul purveyor call; And lo, the plunderer of the tomb Brings up his budget in the room; Rolls out, their ardent gaze before, A huge, fat negress on the floor; Then with a savage howl they roar! Like cannibals, prepar’d to roast Their pris’ners on some barbarous coast; Like Shakspeare’s Jew, the joyous band Whet their keen blades with eager band; While all the putrid limbs excite Their foul and Vampyre appetite.—

XIX.

And what am I, whose spider skill Has thus contrived this sheet to fill; From my own bowels spun the lay, Until I find no more to say? Before to all I bid adieu, Confess,—I AM A VAMPYRE TOO!

#The Black-Vampyre #Public Domain #Public domain stories #Public Domain poems #Poetry #Black Vampires #Uriah Derick D’arcy #Rjalker transcribes The Black-Vampyre #didn't actually have to transcribe in this case #just fix all the fuckups and get rid of all the bullshit

[icewindandboringhorror]

Daily Log 2

Trying out (probably just temporarily) making short daily-ish notes about things, in an attempt to see if it helps me be more reflective or productive lol.

Activities: Much less than yesterday, felt sick and sleepy so barely got anything done. It was also warmer inside today.. Very much dreading summer. I still feel like the people who ~~ love warm weather sooo much~~ must also have central heating and air and are able to escape the warmth, or at least have cool airy houses where they can get cross breezes or something.. I just fail to see how ANYONE could enjoy sweating all day because it's like 75F indoors, etc. grrbb,,, the headaches, sleepless sweaty nights, constant physical discomfort, etc. The next few days look cloudy and rainy though so.. yEs.. haha HA

Got a new charger for my old 2004 nokia phone so it actually turns on now, and recorded myself going through the ringtones and games. I might add the footage to a currently not fully edited video of me also looking through other electronics (old phones, turbo twist math, etc.). I love old ringtones actually and if I were rich, I would love to collect old phones specifically just to have a catalogue of what they're like and all of the sounds they contain.

Managed to have a tiny burst of energy and take photos of 3 outfits before my arms and shoulder started hurting and I got too warm.

Sent email to one doctor.

Translated like 3 words for the Avirrekava poem thing I mentioned yesterday. My language document is not organized very well at all so I've kind of lost my flow of working on it. I've heard about people making searchable dictionary type things for their conlangs, so I'd like to look more into that maybe. As well as making a custom font, though I don't know if that's more difficult for syllabaries (so wouldn't be directly linkable to a plain english alphabet keyboard?? eh?). Anyway, I need to finish the tapestry/painting thing/etc. soon though since I have no good place to put it. The canvas is warping a little just laying haphazardly on my closet floor lol.

Made one quick mspaint background image for the next batch of song snippet things for my jokey music youtube.

Edited like 10 minutes of the Giant Worldbuilding Slideshow Project.. couldn't focus on that either since being at the computer today irritated my shoulders and arms.

Notable sights: Saw 6 baby ducks and their parents swimming in a nearby pond!! It's interesting how their colors seem to change so much, and the young ones have the little spots on their back. Not much else, I was not very active lol..

Goals moving forward: Still working on consistent sleep schedule. Focus on social activities, finding new friends in the places I want to move, communicating with ones I have. Physical therapy exercises. Plant nasturtiums. Finish and upload videos, edit pictures, post the poll adventure thing that has been sitting in a draft for weeks (I thought I would get it done today, but alas.. I don't even have to do much, just proofread and post it, I just keep having no energy/being preoccupied with other things/hurts to be on computer.. grrr.. I want to continue the story lol >:T).

Notable foods: HAD ASPARAGUS YEaaaaaghhhHHHH!!!!!!!!! Asparagus SQUAD!!!!!!!!!! ... Also a few pieces of smoked gouda with lunch, one of my favorite cheeses.

#just posting these publicly since it feels more like I'm doing something or easier to hold yourself accountable if you make public #declarations of goals and progress or etc. .. perhaps.. for now.. #I'm just curious to see if it helps. I know some poeple do diary style stuff or etc. on social media to help with productivity so #worth trying for like a week at least lol #tired and sleepy of being tired and sleepy though. Every day that stuff like chronic health problems or weather or etc. #interfere with me getting stuff done and it's all stuff that I've also had on my todo list for like.. weeks at this point it's like.. oughh #insurmountable tasks ever looming piling upon my shoulderes... #I've been 'supposed to call a lab to shedule blood work' for like a week and a half now and everyday I get the number #out and look at it and just go 'hmm.... sooon...' and then suddenly it's 10pm and I didn't #You Know How It Is Folks. I'm going to write myself a script of exactly what to say and also tape it to my computer screen #Sometimes that helps. lol #I dont' feel like I need a full on caretaker or something at this point but someitmes I do think like.. in a few years with my various #physical and mental issues it would be nice to have a Person Who Functions Normally Socially come visit me like once #every two weeks to help me plan things and make phone calls. Same with creative stuff too though. I bet I'd be doing something creative as #a career by now if I had like. an Assigned Neurotypical Extrovert to network for me and help me navigate things like that bjhbhj #hashtag hermit problems. etc. etc. (not just like 'a little weird and asocial' but like.. 'near complete inability to function in society' #type hermit problems lol.. #ANYWAY.. .. #Also fighting the urge to have another personality typing phase. I can feel it creeping up. My 'once every 3 months when I get very #interested in the enneagram and other stuff again' type of thing. distracting myself with worldbuilding paintings instead ghgj #why don't you do a phone call for your blood work first maybe then you can spend 3 hours reading about tritypes or whatever #I have so many interests and hobbies but a handful of Main Ones and they never go away I just seem to take turns with them #Except worldbuilding I think that's always there. Genuinely again.. wish I could find some way to work that into a career. that is the only #thing I could to 1000 hours straight at any time of day under any circumstance. Kidnap me and lock me in a basement and I will be passing #my time thinking about what type of cheese elves make and all the things I'm going to write once I escape captivity ghjhj #EVEYRHTING else though lol.. kind of comes and goes. but can be annoying when it's suddenly the only thing my mind #wants to focus on. BUT yeagh.. ANYWAY... rambling again #daily log

[xerospaced]

Today I received an email informing me of Mslexia's upcoming poetry competition

And like...

Why not, right?

Pick three poems to submit. If I'm shortlisted they select one.

And im writing all the time

It's not like it's a distraction just a part of my daily life

So why shouldn't I be submitting

All over, really

I've had these potential poetry books in the back of my mind and, especially since my writing is now more refined, I think it might be time

For Water.

The books I'd compiled previously no longer represent me and that's OK. I wouldn't want them to be my first introduction to the literary world if I am fortunate enough to be published one day.

I would, however, publish them down the line. A flashback into what I once was.

But Water. will be the one.

I've had it turning over for some time now and I feel myself defined.

I'll be pawing through poems from recent years and, when I have a little more time to set aside to really dive into this, excerpts from the depths of this blog.

Because my poetry is in everything which is a beautiful thing but unfortunate when it comes to actually collating content.

There's gold in them there hills!

Anyway, I'm gonna do that and that feels nice and it's the first thing I've felt remotely excited about in a very long time.

I remember back when I was working on The Swings & The Vanity (as I outgrew it) and the pleasure I took in bringing it all together. Editing, formatting, picking just the right order to share my story.

I was so focused on that goal I was doing it at work lmfao

THIS is the kind of drive I want to feed into my daily life. And I had it for my mental wellness consulting business when I did the soft run. Before I pussied out of actually launching the thing. Before I became downtrodden.

And now im trying to work on that again and I'm finding no motivation despite it being my calling. Or a significant part of it, anyway.

And ive been trying to increase the job search but, again, I am without passion and drive - entirely lacklustre. Esp since it requires me pouring my efforts into a matter that exists solely for monetary gain. And I am not one who is motivated by money.

That said, I have been applying for jobs in my experiential field and I do, of course, enjoy it to some extent. It allows me to delve into my nerdy grammatical brain.

But it does not Fulfil me

Not like wellness consulting.

And it does not feed me

As my writing does

I've needed an in

A something.

I said, recently, that I just need something good. One good thing to propel me into action. One good thing to serve as a launching pad and thrust me into productivity and active motivation.

And I think this might be it.

Even if my poems aren't selected, I don't care.

Even if my manuscript never gets published, I do not care.

I Want - and I mean actually WANT - to spend timing constructing a manuscript. To spend time editing. To spend time curating my random expressions of my innermost thoughts and feelings into a cohesive piece of literature.

That EXCITES me

So that is where I'll begin.

And I know it seems like a detour. But once something sparks me. Once that focus kicks in, it is a light task to extend it further to the necessities that stand to help me carve out the life I desire.

If I'm focused on editing and compiling, and I'm right there on my surface, juggling thoughts and documents with my brain SWITCHED TFUCK ON, then it is pretty much by default that that same creativity will direct me to my passion, my business, my ultimate "career" goal. Because that same creativity and drive is what I need to build the thing I can put out there. To create the brand, to engage, to post, to excel.

I've needed this. Desperately. A genuine shot of desire and excited intention.

I've been too caught up pushing what I know I want by way of necessity and obligation.

But this

This is igniting me. This is living effort.

I am ready.

#mine #poetry #writing #i am excited

[practically-an-x-man]

Random character asks. Give me one canon and one oc

2, 17, 18, 31

thank you so much bestie!!!

answers under the cut as usual. I ended up kinda bouncing around characters because that was easier.

Random Character Asks

2. A canon or headcanon hill I will die on

Okay, I know you said one canon and one OC, but I'm feeling opinionated today and I don't really know how to answer this was an OC anyway.

Alex Summers is not dumb. Lack of education does not mean dumb. A criminal record does not mean dumb. He's quick-witted and can react quickly in a fight - not to mention, in the comics he's actually very intelligent and studies geophysical sciences. I'm tired of people turning him into a stereotypical "bad boy" and completely erasing those other sides of his character.

Billy from 6 Underground is not dumb. ADHD does not mean dumb. He talks fast and bounces from topic to topic, goes off on random side tangents, but he's not stupid. Parkour as a whole requires a lot of snap judgements, and intrinsic knowledge of physics and kinesthetics. Then add that to the fact that he was a thief and had to plan how to steal his target items (and not just himself, a whole crew of people), and there's actually a lot of intellect that goes into his character.

Just in general, I feel like intelligence gets missed when the character isn't "book smart" or formally educated. Just because a character doesn't spout facts and calculations doesn't mean they're dumb. There are so many other characters I could talk about here because it happens a LOT, but that's a separate post.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

Obviously I work a lot of music into my fics, but I think Prometheus is the only one where I've made a truly defined playlist (and I don't really collect quotes or read a lot of poems). The song I most associate with them is The Calling by The Amazing Devil, for so many reasons. Here, look at the lyrics:

Back then, I was dauntless And dawn could never know And my weakness made me weep less Than I would ever show you I'd burn so bright it blinded Now I know that light guided me here I walked into the river To wring those embers from my broken heart and broken liver You'll never get your dinner if you don't learn how to get along And a fox somewhere is hiding That light I thought was blinding brought me here I look into the waters and see a face I don't understand We're both unwanted daughters But there's more than water in these autumn hands I look into the waters and see a face I don't recognize Who's this? (Who are you?) "What changed?" I ask "So strange, " she replies Shoulder the sky (I can't wait to show you how much) Open those eyes (I know you can be, just let the rain come) There's a kind (let the rain come down, darling) (Can't you hear it howling?) Of calling, calling

Look at it! The "burning" and "embers", all the fire symbolism! And then followed by a reference to the mythological Prometheus, with the "broken liver" bit! And the "looking into the waters" to me represented Prometheus partway through their transformation into a dream, when they look at themself and no longer see Nyx, but don't quite know what they've become yet. It fits them just so perfectly.

And I really like Wolf by First Aid Kit for the Corinthian too (thanks for sharing the song with me bestie, it's become one of my favorites).

18. What they’d go to see a therapist about

Bestie everyone needs so much therapy I don't even know who to talk about here.

Indie definitely needs to work through some PTSD. Even before the war, I think she struggles with it just from her experiences on Corellia, but it definitely gets worse after the final battle and everything that happened there.

I also feel like she and Hux might seek out couple's therapy at some point - not because anything's wrong, but just because they're both used to being alone and might need help learning to adjust to being able to rely on someone else.

31. If they had a tumblr what would it look like?

Out of my OCs, Jasper's the most likely to have a tumblr account. They probably made an account when they were 14-15 and spent way too long designing their blog, but hasn't changed it since then because they got too busy with college and didn't have the time. I don't think they'd have any blog theme, they'd just kinda reblog whatever they felt like.

For canon characters, this is a bit of a shitpost but I think it would be really funny if the Corinthian had a tumblr that was just him posting really vague rants about his boss, where they're juuust enough bizarre detail that you can't tell if it's a real rant or a tumblr-ism. Sort of like the @dreamofthemaidenless blog, I think

#my friends!!! #answered asks #ask game #my writing #my ocs #fanfic #fanfic author

[cescalr]

hey bestie! <3 for the ask game:

8. What project(s) are you currently working on?

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

16. At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

hey a! <3 Okay, so;

8. .... too many. Anything that's not marked as complete on Ao3 (or, er, abandoned. shhh) is a current WIP. I just kind of... wander between them at the leisure of my motivation.

So there's... 40. Of Them. Yeah. Also, not on ao3; your prompts!! which i am definitely writing!!! I promise bestie i really am <3. Just. Slowly. Like a snail. Or a tortoise trying to win a race <3.

14. Oooh hmmmmmmm Ginny Time Travel AU.... ooh! or!!!!! Claysmond anthology!!!!!!!! Yeah. Yeah I'd be happy with either of those. Esp because the GTTAU adaptation could tidy up some of the issues and integrate The Riddle Problem into the main continuity (and... maybe give a better ending than Miles To Go whichhhhh.... sorry about that one). Claysmond anthology is a favourite of mine, though. Would love to see that one, like with my eyeballs, fully visualised. I don't. I don't know why i put it like that. That's how - that's how vision works. You know what? Let's move on.

16. Whenever. Sometimes I have the title first, like with The Things That Bind Us - And The Ties That Blind Us. You know. Because of the saying? The ties that bind us. I was playing on that before I had a single word written down for it. And the same with For What It's Worth, because that's like... the entire thematic underpinning of that story. Heaven Sent. too! I just thought that pun was funny. It didn't have much to do with the actual story other than as a sort of... apt reference to how John even got kids with Mary. Ah, cupid plotline. awful shit. Anyway. But other times it's just kind of like... A good turn of phrase I use, or once I've written something there's a thematic throughline I can apply, like all the poetry references in the GTTAU; Miles To Go is from a robert frost poem. The Want Of Gold To Stay is in reference both to a thing that became kind of a motif of the story which would be sort of a spoiler so I wont say, but also specifically to the poem (also robert frost) Nothing Gold Can Stay. There's - lol there's more than just Mr. Frost's poems in those fics, lol. But yeah. Later was named for what ended up being a motif in the story - that things would all have to be addressed later because the world was ending now so important things were being put off for the sake of survival. So sometimes it's based on something from the story, or I have an idea for a title first. Like, I didn't have a name for Kneel and Disconnect before I posted it, it had a working title for ages, but I ended up using The Incident album lyrics for the chapter titles because Kneel and Disconnect (have a listen, if you like!) happened to start playing when I was working through the metadata portion of posting a fic, so I just used that, you know? It actually kind of fits, which is lucky. (Some, like the Shield Agent!Stiles AU, never lose their working titles. I'm a professional I promise.) Also some of my fics get the Not-Fic: prefix because I like to let people know when it's more an outline than a properly written out fic, like Not-Fic; Inverted Relativity Falls. or my nat time travel fic i... 'wrote' forever ago and never like, extrapolated into. actual fic. oops. I put it into a series and everything! I meant to! I just never did! I'm very reliable. I promise. I swear your marriage prompt is getting written bestie. Promise <3 (genuinely. I'm just... slow.)

Anyway, I think too much about fic titles. And when I can't think any harder about the title or my head will explode, I give up and use latin. Ab Epistulis, In Inceptum Finis Est, Veni, Vidi, Conatus Sum, etc... that's me not knowing what to name something and not actually having had a working title to just leave applied, lol. Sometimes the working title is just 'f'. First key I press on the keyboard as a touchtypist just to fill the required box in the ao3 input screen because, as a perfectly sane and sensible woman, I write all my fic directly into Ao3. :). I don't recommend it. I lose a lot of writing. Often.

22. All improv babeyyyy actually the only one I knew how it would end first was the claysmond anthology (because the 5 + 1 nature of it meant that in the + 1, claysmond needed to end tragically and never happen, so I knew the ending needed to be some kind of sad or bittersweet) and your prompted fics because you wanted fluff... from me, which. I mean. I managed! A bit!! Kind of!!! They ended happy, anyway. Don't - Don't think about the fact itc and it's sequel were set during the camping trip of doom so all the bad that happens after still. happens after. don't think about that. :) All was well :) :).

so anyway! Yeah!!! Thanks bestie <3 <3.

#ask game #<3

[ink-stained-words]

I don't have enough thoughts at the moment to make a proper post so this is probably more of a "things I'll forget otherwise" list

-The very specific way I fix my necklace now. It's deliberate. I fully pause before fixing it, as if acknowledging 1, how often it gets messed up, & 2 how you kept insisting on fixing it

-I have my own Monster can collection now. It consists of 1 can. Bc I refuse to drink the angry peach ring drink & just have the one I bought for your sleepover

-Legitimately never going to rearrange that shelf. I have no idea how you were color coding it. There're two red books in the middle. But I love you so it's just gonna stay that way

-I moved Heartstopper over by the yellow books. I think its new placement will probably annoy you more than before

-I started tying my curtains back with some of the ribbons I've acquired from you. It's pretty

-Jenga has now been permanently associated with you in my head. That's your legacy. Really good at Jenga. I'm gonna write a poem & rhyme something with Jenga /hj

-Help what rhymes with Jenga

-Google suggested "magenta". This is promising for future poem writing. Even if those words absolutely do not rhyme

-I mentioned wedding shopping in the tags of a post from a few days ago & I'm genuinely quite fixated on how much fun it was for tiny me

-Not tiny tiny me, at my parents' wedding. That was 2005. I don't remember any of it. But my aunt's wedding was in 2010ish & I remember trying on high heels

-It was so cool. Watching the adults try on boring bridesmaid dresses was boring but the shoes were awesome. Quite sad you weren't there. We could've found the best ones

-On the note of "things you absolutely could not have been present for, but I'm sad you weren't anyway", we went on a trip to Leavenworth in 2018 & it snowed so so much

-It was a family reunion so the Airbnb was huge & quite pretty. And the town was so lovely, we would've had a blast exploring it

-We could've had a snowball fight. It would've been great. Why weren't you invited to the family reunion that took place 3 years before we met, this is a tragedy

-I finished rwrb & it was very good

-Oh and also the other book by that author, about the girls on the subway. It's not really a spoiler, plot wise, but there's a part I remember

-At some point one of the girls goes to a party & gets very drunk. Drunk party girl calls the other girl & is sad that she isn't at the party & is like. "I should just carry you around in my pocket on speaker"

-And then she does??? She walks around the party with the other girl talking through her phone, responding to conversations & stuff??

-And I decided that was absolutely something I would do, inevitably sleep deprived

-No way in hell I'd get drunk at a party you weren't attending

-I wouldn't even get drunk at *that* party, bc I'd be worried about you & would assign myself as the designated driver

-Can't believe you're gonna refuse to play Candy Land with my tiny cousins some day

-Next you're gonna tell me you're not gonna play Monopoly Jr, which my aunt bought last time I was there /t

-My dad also banned my brother's friend from sleeping in his room, but they weren't nearly as invested in finding loopholes. Just slept in separate rooms. Quite boring of them

#writing #list #I'll add more to this later #edit: I have a lot more thoughts than previously anticipated #but I don't have the energy to make a post #so it's just gonna be a list #a list of things I kept meaning to tell you #tada