#just. the SHEER MENTAL INCONGRUITY
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forever obsessed with the samdean conjoined twins submotif reiterated throughout and through the means of visualization, symbolism, and text; there's this sheer panic of bodily separation (‘you two are never seeing each other again’ - while shackled in one chain in one cell on one bed; ‘we're in separate rooms?’; banging at the physical and unbodied barriers between them like wild dogs) that bleeds into violence and zeal of the two homogeneous moieties gluing back into one entity, however incongruous and transgressive. transgressive in the sense that this codependency defies expectancy of societal normativity and operates solely in a scope of self- and mutual necessity that turns grotesque, asocial: no, i will not bury my brother's body, says dean, no, i will not burn my brother's body and will preserve it in a casket til he comes back to me, says sam - the idea of flesh rot appears as a wraithlike afterthought irrelevant to their mental corporeal knot. it is also riot against reality. grave will not eat him. death will not take him. demons won't hold us apart. the only association of completeness is related to each other, whether marital, spiritual, or consanguineal, because ultimately the denial, or absence, of any distinction between those is their fusion into synonymity - they are the namesakes of their married grandparents, they were subjected to the embarrassingly blatant realization of being soulmates, ‘i shall be your little brother’ says siren, comingling familial with erotic; ecclesially nuptial, too - spewing oath-confessions in a church. any revolt from either of the halvings against this ingrownness or an attempt for autonomy is stifled by the other until one brother-extremity swallows, subjugates the opposing one, and the pair turns into oneness again: sammy cannot have his own life and his own body and his own sexuality unless it is curated by dean but so is dean cannot have his own thoughts and his own experiences and motifs unless sam is the prime participator, prime confidant, or the object of. there is a dialogue in season iii where sam tells dean that if he cannot save him from death then he has to become dean. if i can't have you through you then i'll have you in me. he resorts to absorption of dean's persona into seity in his denial of separation just because (‘there ain't no me if there ain't no you’). it is a deeply abusive, cannibalistic, intrusive concept that also implies the smothering, terrifying totality of love and all its manifestations both subtle and extreme. it is painful and yet it is not improper because it is sought and anticipated and relished like a final homecoming (‘sam is the age he was when dean died’, ‘like he's been waiting for dean for years...and in a lot of ways he has’). it also happens to be fucking deranged.
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Wanted to ask what you think about this reading
( >︹<)
No but actually. It's anti intellectual, cynical, bad faith, not authorially intended, and not textually supported take. The sheer degree of misreading makes this almost laughable.
Like if you don't think that romantic love--which is not incongruent with spiritual love--is the entire POINT of the ending, of what offers Raskolnikov and Sonia practical futures, then they didn't read the book. They read their own presumptions into the text.
I'll quote from @linkspooky here. Link's talking about No Longer Human, which is in many ways a response to C&P, as well as how NLH's main character is perhaps more similar to the unnamed narrator of Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. The point I think Link expresses really well is this:
For Yozo, each woman he meets is his Sonya, they are meant to redeem him and bring him peace, and when they don’t he leaves. Yozo someone missing the point that, Raskolnikov loved Sonya because he sympathized with her circumstances and suffering while Yozo really only ever cares about his own suffering...
The protagonist encounters a young prostitute name Liza, he tries to save her at first, but then turns around and starts to treat her terribly and has a mental breakdown in front of her that ends in this line. She finds him pitiable, and comforts him in that moment.
However, after this moment of comfort he then he goes back to treating her terribly once more. He yells at her, and she grows tired of him. He pays her and she leaves and that’s the end of that relationship.
See it’s a moment that’s simultaneously, a moment of human connection, but also it shows how the protagonist regards other people and why he can’t connect to them. If you only use other people to comfort your loneliness, you’re going to end up alone either way. The same way the Narrator uses Liza, Yozo chronically uses women.
The person whose take you linked (no idea who they are) is basically doing the same thing as Yozo and as the unnamed Narrator--they're viewing Sonya as existing for Raskolnikov, but they don't cite any actual evidence for this, nor can they without removing context. Now, you can criticize Dostoyevsky's execution of the idea, but there is a vast, vast, vast difference between how Dostoyevsky portrays the Narrator and Liza and how he portrays Raskolnikov and Sonya. This difference shows that Dostoyevsky is not unaware of the idea of seeing a woman as an idea or an idol rather than as a human being.
Sonya is absolutely a person, and that's why she's able to impact Raskolnikov so much, and why he's able to empathize with her. It's her humanity. Someone who is denied humanity by so many and even by his own self meets someone whom others deny humanity to and can only affirm her humanity because of what he's heard from those who love her--long before Sonya and Raskolnikov ever have any sort of interaction. He affirms her humanity before he even meets her, and that's the point.
Yes, within the story she's a symbol for the suffering of humanity and for the suffering of poor women just as Raskolnikov is a symbol for the suffering of the impoverished students desperately seeking some kind of meaning in a life that looks hopeless. But to reduce the characters to their symbols and to argue that the text supports this is directly against the themes, because Raskolnikov seeing people as just symbols is exactly what fueled his toxic philosophy. It's coming to love someone as a human being that sets him free from that.
#ask hamliet#crime and punishment#fyodor dostoevsky#rodion romanovich raskolnikov#sonya marmeladova#notes from underground
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Hi 👋. So, I've decided to write something for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor mini writing challenge. The prompts I've used are
Shovel
Wooly Sweater
Warnings - Minors DNI, Smut, Masturbation (Male and Female), Voyeurism (Without Consent), Stalking, Overall Dark Themes.
Overall just a small drabble about a dark!CaptainAmerica fiction obsessed with the OC.
Enjoy, and please feel free to comment and reply if you want to. It is much appreciated.
Mine to love, Mine to break.
He was running out of time.
Sweat beaded upon the peripheries of his blond locks as his muscles threatened to seize under the sheer pressure of it all. He utilized the primitive shovel betwixt his clenched fist to tear the frozen earth away from its resting place. Personifying the very essence of his being as that of a desecrator; one who stares into silence and screams into its boundless void in a futile endeavor to dilute its potency.
Yet, at this very moment, power was simply a fleeting glimpse of all he lacked. Despising it with every core of his being as he pummelled into the ground with the righteous fervor of a man made of nothing: a facade.
Continuously wrenching the rusted steel through the dirt until it bowed to his force and contributed to the cacophony of rings, screams, and addled breaths that danced around his tumultuous mind. As if they were taunting him, and a man of his stature would not stand to be mocked nor disparaged.
What a paradoxical sight.
The idealistic symbol of America besmeared in soil and a substance so much more viscous and damning. Whilst the serum running through his veins is rendered impotent in the face of his desperation.
The darkness elucidated the hollow delirium that had consumed him whole.
A few weeks prior.
The wind nipped at her skin through the gaps of her woolen sweater as she ambled through the barrage of rain that seemed to be purposely attacking her with all of its might.
Bright, almost jarring against the dull grey of the pavement beneath her hurried step. Violaceous purples and sunny yellows remained incongruous against her forlorn expression. Thread-bear jeans, which were a tad too short for her taller figure allowed the puddles to splash against her ankles and seep into her dilapidated black pumps: soaking her feet and exacerbating her misery.
Years of toiling over her work merely to be overlooked and underpaid had marred her once bright smiles with hints of fatigue and lines around her amber eyes.
With a heavy heart, she unlocks the door to her flat building and lumbers up the stairs that substitute the lift that had not worked since she had taken residence.
Entering her lodgings with a sigh she places her keys onto the hook and placed her sole pair of shoes in their designated place by the door. Mentally preparing herself for another evening of monotonous preparation for yet another day of underappreciated exertion.
Settling into her bed after eating her leftover spaghetti and attempting to douse her struggles with the limited hot water in her shower was a feat within itself. Endeavoring to find respite between her thin white sheets as sleep continued to evade her.
Her mind rustled with thoughts of the trials and tribulations that faced her. She needed a distraction.
Rummaging through her small bedside drawer she found her savior: a small pink vibrator.
Maybe she should take some time for herself? Surely, she has earned it.
Taking her smartphone off of its second-hand charging cable she searched for some porn to watch. After a few minutes of absentminded scrolling, she found the perfect video. One of a woman bound to a bed as a man pounds into her while she lewdly whimpers and moans into the underwear stuffed in her mouth.
Leaning her phone against her headboard and turning to lie on her plush midriff. She selects the video and shoves the vibrator under her trousers. Suddenly too desperate for any foreplay, she presses it against her clit and moans at the sensation.
The jolting pleasure as she ground her clit into the vibrator with ever-increasing desperation. Imagining herself as the woman in the video, with arms bound so that she could do nothing but take his thick cock with squealing moans as she tasted her wetness through her panties.
Releasing her whimpers as she toyed with the wetness seeping out of her desperate little hole. Begging into the empty air for release as her thrusts increased, making the bed tremor.
Turning the volume up to hear the man dirty talking to the woman as her tits bounced with every rapid thrust, with no care for her thin walls as she obsessed over her pleasure.
She was so close, her brunette hair dragging against her face as she chased her climax. The coil tightened as her pussy grew wetter and wetter.
Suddenly, it burst within her and she opened her mouth in a silent scream as her overstimulated clit continued to glide over her soaked vibrator. Riding it out until it became far too much to bear.
Breathing deeply as she attempted to digest the orgasm she had just given herself she turned off the video and vibrator: suddenly embarrassed at how deafening it was. However, the obscene amount of slickness between her legs was undeniable - she had squirted.
Removing the soaked vibrator from between her legs she began licking her slick from the device, silently worshipping it for the pleasure it had given her. She felt no need to clean up the mess between her legs that had leaked onto her bed sheets. For now, she was content with reveling in it and occasionally reaching down with her two fingers and tasting it.
She had experienced the best orgasm of her life. So, did he.
Watching her through the cameras he had covertly installed in her minuscule home, he had seen it all. Recognizing just how much of a slut he had desired for himself and how satisfying it would be to quell her need in the name of his own.
For that pulsating cunt to be wrapped around his cock as she came. He pumped his cock into his clenched fist as he moaned her name, using his preccum to lubricate the movement.
The moment he came, he realized the true extent of his obsession. Which ranged from premeditated chance encounters in supermarkets to following her home under the cover of shadow. She belonged to him.
After such sacrifices for his country, and for the world he was owed this minute gift. A pussy to warm his cock at night, and as far as he was concerned she already belonged to him.
The last time he had entered her apartment her sweater had been laying on her bed. He had scrutinized it and inhaled her aroma lingering in the cloth. Fuelling the blaze of his addiction to her.
He wanted to love her. He wanted to own her. He wanted to break her.
To him, it was all the same.
Her grins as well as her anguish belonged to him, and if anyone dictated otherwise her smiles and screams would stop altogether.
#roosminimarch#dark fic#smut#Captain America#steve rogers#dark au#masturbata#make me masturbate#shameless smut#ocs#other characters#drabble#Im still trying to improve#had a lot of fun with these#Enjoyed writing it
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Digipack: CD - Second Draft
My first digipack paid homage to Raymond Pettibons comic-esque, monochromatic album covers. However, my attempts to replicate this style through the consolidation of poor line quality with a semi competent art style was incongruent, and resulted in the piece looking confused. I realised my attempts to reach a middle ground to make my art appear intentionally bad was not working, and thus needed to lean towards either end of the binary opposites of messy and clean. As such, I decided re-work my approach, and lean more towards the messy, more explicitly juvenile art direction.
Inspirations
★ Crest (Bladee, Ecco2k, 2022)
★ Beatopia (Beabadoobee, 2022)
★ Exeter (Bladee, 2020)
I then looked towards the artists from my original inspirational mood board. I recognised a trend in medium, using non-ink mediums that would often be seen in a kids classroom, such as both regular and coloured pencil, wax crayon and pastel. In addition to this, the use of wide, highly saturated colour palettes enables a childlike, jovial quality, a quality that is subverted by the pop-punk music the album represents.
In addition to this, the use of seemingly random, unrelated, and near surreal images as opposed to representing the artist is a very anti-commercial stance, one my original digipack did not adhere to as the sheer depiction of a band member has the most minor of implications of the band being identity driven, and by proxy utilising the self as a 'product', which goes against the punk mentality. As such, though in a wildly different direction to my original ideas, I decided to apply these qualities to my album artwork.
Criterion
★ Traditional, non ink mediums
★ Saturated colour palette
★ Random imagery (not including band members or logos)
Final Artwork
Front · Back
Following the above criterion, I produced these two artworks.
Though I wanted the imagery to appear random, the choices for each individual subject were strategic and were chosen in service to the punk mentality. The use of intertextual references, specifically Jim Davis' Garfield and Sanrio's Pompompurin, both child friendly IPs, in my artwork is not only characteristic of the punk 'cut and paste' culture, but also subverts their clean personas through inclusion on such a provocative album. I wanted to push being intentionally provocative through a bastardised depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, an image that may offend, but may be just as likely to service humour to others.
To add to the randomness, I utilised a bricolage of styles, drawing inspiration from 90s anime, comic strip absurdity, kids drawing and amateur art. I did however stray from my criterion, using a variety of mediums including pen ink and marker though I do feel the veering was beneficial to my overall piece, servicing the other criterion of saturated colours, which non ink based mediums fail to provide.
My choice to only use free, online fonts or simply handwriting also relates to the punk movement through being anti consumerist, refusing to subscribe to use premium fonts. As the piece was so messy and cluttered, I decided to use clean, sans serif fonts such as Public Sans and Futura. The choice to feature the album and band name on the back was strategic as after all, the album is still a product that requires selling. I did however want it to feel more personal and as such, hand wrote the band and album name. FInally, to make the album art feel like an actual product, I added a serial number, barcode and copyright.
Overall, I'm very happy with the outcome of these works, as I feel they effectively represent the band's brand image as well as the punk movement in both aesthetic and creation.
CD
For my previous digipack, I made a very simple CD design which only contained the album and band name in a scribbly font. Though the simplicity adhered to the anti establishment mentality, I wanted to make a new CD design to follow the new direction of my digipack. As such, I looked again towards my key inspiration of Beatopia, who's CD featured a scribbly butterfly. This reminded me and possibly drew inspiration from Britney Spears' '...Baby One More Time' CD, which consisted of a hand drawn flower.
With these inspirations in mind, I created this rather simple design of a cherub and scribble. I wanted the CD design to be comparatively simplistic to my album art as to contrast to its cluttered and random nature. As the details on the CD would be seen bigger than that of the album artwork, I used thicker lines with more bold mediums such as oil pastels. To also add texture to further juxtapose the alb um artwork, I crumpled the paper before scanning, servicing the handmade look.
To make the CD appear as a more coherent product, I included the compact disc logo as well as utilising free clipart to make a faux record label logo. I then used the same serial number and copyright that featured on the album art.
Consolidating ideas
I consolidated my ideas on this template, which enabled me to not only view how all aspects of my CD artwork interplayed with one another, but also map out a potential spine and inside insert design.
For the inside insert, I featured a polaroid from my film. However, my reasoning and choice of polaroid differ from that of my 1st digipack draft. This time, I decided on using a photograph that featured a couple of Vice's band members working on making the film. The subject of them actually creating the work, as well as the obscuring of their faces through either objects or life, undermines any connotations of 'selling out' through identity focus.
For the spine, I wanted something sleek and simple and thus decided on only including the album and band name around the middle of the spine. The simplicity paired with an intentionally poor font choice serviced the CD being identifiable, an aspect imperative to the punk mindset, being non conformist.
Final CD Digipack
Utilising a free .psd mockup set, I was able to see a proper visualisation of what the CD would look like in real life. Overall, I am very pleased with this CD design, as i feel all the designs are perfectly balanced with colour, type and negative space. Throughout the entirety of the creative and tangible creating process, I adhered to the punk axioms of anti-establishment, anti-communist, non-conformity and DIY ethic, which by proxy, makes my album approachable to my target audience of young, likeminded punks.
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I am very pleased for everybody losing their minds over Our Flag Means Death (I shall be watching it on the weekend) but if it’s alright, I’ll just be over here in the interim losing my mind that Tumblr’s new boyfriends are the Say No To Racism guy and the 2Degrees Ad Guy. 2022 is really Something Else
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Psycho-Pass S03E01 - Laelaps Calling
Now that a good chunk of my temporary work files had been busted thanks to a failed drive, I've finally found time to watch Psycho-Pass S03E01. Oh, the irony of it -- finding time to enjoy something I like only because I temporarily can't work. Spirit of time, eh. I'm too used to being a workaholic :')
Back to the matter at hand. Beware the spoilers.
I admit I'm pleasantly surprised with the pilot episode. After the disastrous S02, a slower pacing and a seeming return to the pressing social circumstances are a welcome change. If anything, it helps to build up suspense and tension. Naturally, there is a downside as well. Due to the episode length and the sheer number of new characters introduced all at once, some details become easy to miss. I had to rewind the video multiple times just to refresh my memory. The narration appears to be disjointed at times, although not quite as incongruous as the Sinners of the System were.
Now let's get to the real fun.
Bifrost and Fenrir
As it turns out, I was right about Bifrost and certain Norse mythology references. For that matter, I was right about the wolf-like figure as well.
Many of you know that in Norse mythology Bifrost is a legendary rainbow bridge that connects the realm of men (Midgard) with the realm of gods (Asgard). I wouldn't have paid it any attention had it not been for the wolf figure in the trailer. Fenrir, the monstrous wolf, is yet another figure from Norse mythology. It is said that one day Fenrir (or his offsprings, accounts vary) will break free of his chains and will ultimately swallow the Sun/Moon. Fenrir gaining freedom signifies the beginning of Ragnarok, i.e. the apocalypse and the death of gods. This episode, however, confirmed both -- at very least the Bifrost thing is real.
Bifrost
From what we saw in the pilot Bifrost is mentioned within the context of the game/tournament that was taking place in a secret hideout.
The process of participating in the game creates a "relation" which I assume to be the "link" or a "bridge" (i.e. the Bifrost) to whatever system they are tapping into. Since Bifrost is meant to link the "world of men" to the "world of gods", could it be that they have found a way to hijack into some Sibyl controlled processes? I've got the impression that they are gambling with the stock exchange. One of them is pulling strings to orchestrate accidents that would make certain indices fall, thus profiting from the share market losses. Oh and round-robin is a kind of a tournament setup, all-vs-all type, that is supposed to provide equal chances to all participants. The one who wins the most games in the round wins.
Oddly enough the very design of that hub/interface is reminiscent of the world structure as represented in Hindu philosophy, but that's probably just a chance coincidence.
Fenrir
Now the wolf-figure is unquestionably linked to Arata. It has been made clear from the very first minutes of the episode. Peculiarly, Arata's design sports "wolfish" features, for i.g. his hair is styled akin to beast ears and he has yellowish eyes.
If they truly intend to use Norse mythology for this, then I'd wager to guess that the monstrous wolf is "Fenrir", who is bound to Arata's subconsciousness -- the menacing figure appears only when he's sleeping or using his mental tracing.
In other words, Arata either IS the monster himself or is a vessel for the dark being. Something will happen to him and the "monster" will override his personality, thus "breaking free from chains". According to the myth, Fenrir will aid the "Ragnarok", i.e. the death of gods. Who are the "gods" within the world of PP? That's right, the Sibyl System.
Also, in the opening sequence, both Kei and Arata are shown facing off with their guns drawn. Could it be that Arata will turn against the system and become the “bad” guy?
And by the by, is it me, or does Arata appear to be narcoleptic?
Laelaps Calling
The name of the episode is a spoiler itself since it hints about the general direction of the plot. You see, Laelaps is yet another mythical figure. This time -- from Greek legends. The tale of Laelaps and the Teumessian Fox tells a story of an ill-fortunate and a paradoxical matchup of a hound and a fox. Laelaps is the hound that is destined to catch whatever prey it's after, while the Teumessian Fox is a beast never to be caught. Think of a catch-22 or something in that spirit.
Within the context of the plot, it appears this season of PP will focus on murders that are impossible to prove as such. In other words, we are likely to witness a face-off between a skilled detective and an elusive criminal. The detective strives to find evidence that what seems to be an accident at first glance is, in fact, a meticulously planned crime.
I guess that fellow with a stylish fringe or the one with the diagram is our Teumessian Fox. Or maybe the criminal underground as a whole is, that's anyone's guess.
Btw the business card Enforcer Mao Kisaragi pulls out of the victim's wallet sports a Fox logo.
Quite a canine story so far, no?
But there's more. Interestingly enough, if you take a look at the Laelaps myth, Arata is hinted to be a wolf, not a dog. But do you know what returning character had been likened to a hound in Season 1 and in the side materials (”Psycho-Pass Legend Enforcer Shinya Kogami - The Hound of Utopia, a novel”)? That's right. Kougami. Kougami, who was noted to be an extremely skilled and intelligent ex-inspector. Could it mean that he will be directly involved in catching the final bad guy and proving the crimes?
Fathers and Sons
Lastly, not mythology but still. The episode featured a character by the name of Bazarov, which is a reference to Ivan Turgenev's novel "Fathers and sons". As such, Turgenev's Bazarov forestalled Nitzsche's ideas on nihilism by rejecting everything that the older generation ("fathers") stood for. Not much of clue itself, yet the episode has drawn attention to Arata's father several times, who allegedly used to be an Inspector as well. A coincidence?
If you go back to the beginning of the vid, where Arata is shown sleeping during the car ride, you'll see that in his dream sequence it is his dad who's driving the car. Later the image shifts to that of a monstrous wolf.
So could the dark figure in Arata's mind represent his father?
Welp, that’s quite a read again, but I had to jot my ideas down.
#psycho pass#psycho pass season 3#psycho pass spoilers#long post#anime#kei mikhail ignatov#arata shindo
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Blood of Dracula’s Castle
This is another film by Al Adamson of Carnival Magic, starring John Carradine of The Unearthly and the weirdly rectangular Alexander D’Arcy of Horrors of Spider Island. If that weren’t enough, the first thing you see when you start the movie is an opening sequence of badly-shot driving set to an incongruously cheerful theme song, looking like something that should have credits over it, but doesn’t. Because obviously the perfect way to begin your movie is by giving everybody flashbacks to Manos: the Hands of Fate. Oh, boy.
Glen Cannon has just inherited a castle, so he takes his girlfriend Liz out to see the place and to meet the longtime tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Townsend. Unfortunately for Glen, Liz, and a number of short-skirted passers-by, the Townsends are actually vampires! They live in the castle with a menagerie of servants that include George the butler, Johnny the homicidal maniac (not the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, just a guy named Johnny who happens to be a homicidal maniac), and a hunchback named Mango. Not keen on the idea of moving, the undead try to persuade the young couple to either extend their lease or sell them the property outright. And if that fails, well, George does need victims to sacrifice to the moon god…
(Pictured above, three hundred percent more captive women than in Hercules and the Captive Women.)
You’d think a movie called Blood of Dracula’s Castle would be set in some ancient and spooky part of eastern Europe, wouldn’t you? And you’d be wrong, because the castle in this story is in the middle of the Arizona desert. Why is there a castle in the Arizona desert? The movie never explains, but I’m guessing the backstory is similar to that of Shea Castle in California, where much of the movie was shot – some rich asshole just decided he wanted to live in a castle. What I really want to know is why this specific castle has vampires in it. Deserts just don’t seem like good vampire habitat, you know?
Blood of Dracula’s Castle is particularly ridiculous about this, because like Attack of the The Eye Creatures or Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules, it features sun-hating baddies in a movie that is clearly shot in the daytime with a dark filter! And like those other movies, the sunshine is so intense that the filters do just about nothing. Also, why is there a beach nearby? Arizona is not exactly famous for those.
The Townsends are some seriously weaksauce vampires. A lot of movies have vampires with superhuman strength, telepathy, or the power of flight. These two are afraid of being shot, and can’t even escape from being tied up with silk sashes. I would say it undermines their threat, but they never seemed that threatening to begin with. Alexander D’Arcy and Paula Raymond play the characters very low-key and matter-of-fact, and their servants come across as far more dangerous than the masters. I suppose this is why the vampires turn to dust in an anticlimax, while the real movie-ending battle is with Mango the hunchback. He takes a bullet to the gut, an axe to the back, is set on fire, and finally topples over a cliff before he goes down! Even George the aged butler puts up a pretty good fight with a morningstar before breaking his neck in a fall down the stairs.
Johnny, meanwhile, is a very confusing inclusion. He’s been in a mental institution for murdering some unspecified number of people, and he blames his killing spree on the full moon. The movie harps on this at some length, with Johnny himself, the Townsends, and George all referring to it, so by the time the climax approaches we’re pretty sure we’re gonna get a werewolf scene. When George sets out to sacrifice a captive woman to the moon god, I was eagerly hoping this would take the form of wolfman Johnny showing up to tear her apart. But Johnny is present to watch, remains fully human throughout, and does nothing, while George simply sets the woman on fire! Why spend all that time setting it up? Is the point supposed to be that Johnny uses lycanthropy as an excuse for his killings when the truth is he’s just a murderer? If so, the movie misses by a mile.
Glen and Liz are technically the main characters, but they’re very much the type who are only present so this movie will have somebody to happen to. The writers, director, and even the actors are far more interested in their assortment of baddies. Neither of the couple has anything that might be considered a character trait. They are introduced in a montage of Glen taking pictures of Liz at Sea World, which establishes nothing but the fact that she’s hot and he’s recently asked her to marry him. There’s also a really weird bit where they make out under the watchful eyes of a voyeuristic walrus, which sure is a sentence I just wrote.
There are a couple of moments when it looks like Glen’s profession of photography might just be plot relevant. He tries to take a picture of Johnny, but Johnny doesn’t want him to, which could have been a precursor to one of them recognizing the escaped murderer. It goes nowhere. I also wondered if the film might make use of the idea that vampires don’t show up any better in photographs than they do in mirrors, but the idea is completely ignored.
About the only thing in Blood of Dracula’s Castle that works is one joke. Glen and Liz are snooping around the castle basement, where they discover the Townsends sleeping in their coffins. Liz starts to freak out, and Glen tries to reassure her by telling her that there’s a perfectly logical explanation. She demands to know what that is… and rather than offer some ‘rational’ bullshit Glen just straight up says, “they’re vampires, obviously!” The sheer surprise of seeing a trope subverted like that in this stupid movie made me laugh out loud.
Is there anything halfway interesting in this movie? Meh, not really. The closest it comes is when it suggests the Townsends’ distaste for ‘traditional’ vampirism. They don’t go around biting necks and leaving bodies behind – instead they drain blood from a vein and sip it out of genteel wine glasses. Killing Glen and Liz is not Plan A, it is what they’re forced to turn to when all else fails. Lady Townsend even contemplates the idea that someday somebody might invent synthetic blood, allowing vampires to become law-abiding citizens!
This could have been neat, but it fails to go anywhere because the Townsends seem entirely cheerful and blasé about the crimes they do commit. They have no problem keeping young women chained up in their dungeon, draining them of blood and then turning them over to Mango to be raped and murdered. They show no reluctance to sacrifice victims to the moon god. In fact, their performance has almost a Stepford Wives sort of feel, in which they are polite and pleasant about literally everything. Even in private, when they worry about possibly having to kill their guests, they sound cheerful. The fake smile plastered across D’Arcy’s face is downright terrifying, though not for the reasons it ought to be. He looks like being in this movie is causing him physical pain.
Another thread seems to be some commentary, probably unintentional, about the nature of relationships. Glen and Liz argue quite a bit, and I think most of it’s intended to be in fun but Gene O’Shane and Barbara Bishop are not good actors and it sometimes comes across quite bitter. Their disagreements contrast with the behaviour of the Townsends, who are perfectly in harmony in everything they do. Perhaps this is because the Townsends have simply known each other longer, having been married for some three centuries while Glen and Liz have only been together a year or so. The impression one gets, however, is an Addams Family sort of vibe, in which embracing the darkness within seems to lead to better relationships.
Now that I think of it… with the charming, well-dressed, and loving couple, and their cadaverous butler, there is definitely an Addams Family thing going on here. The comics had been around since 1938 and the TV series started in 1964, so it was out there for other creators to draw on.
In comparison to the other Al Adamson movies I’ve seen, Blood of Dracula’s Castle actually strikes me as more similar to Carnival Magic than to Psycho-A-Go-Go. The latter film was very upfront about its dark themes, while the former buries them under a cheerful carnival front. Blood of Dracula’s Castle also looks rather harmless on the surface, as the Addams Family comparison makes clear: the Townsends are very cheerful and friendly vampires, their castle more whimsical than foreboding. They and their strange servants could be characters in a comedy, were the movie not so explicit about their murders.
Blood of Dracula’s Castle is pretty dull. You won’t be missing anything if you skip it. If you do want to watch it, I’d better warn you: the opening sequence is set to an upbeat song called Last Train Out, and once it’s in your brain, it’s not going anywhere for a while.
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Okay so I got an ask like,
anonymous asked: whose ur favorite Hazbin character? Like your absolute #1 and why?
and technically my answer is Alastor, but Sir Pent is such a close second that I gave my reasons for him too in that ask, and now I’m making a second post about Alastor.
Reasons I really like Alastor but like, only slightly more than Sir Pent:
- Honestly “I can suck ya dick” *IMMEDIATE BRAIN BREAK FACE* is probably the moment I, like, mentally latched on to Alastor’s character, and at that point I don’t think I even knew yet that the creator had said he was ace. It just... I could feel the aceness in my soul. Like that thing where Jedi run into somebody and go “oh you’re strong in the Force, I can tell.” That was just such a perfect and succinct ace joke, and by that I mean like it feels like a joke from an ace perspective. Like it was so relatable.
- tbh half my reasons for liking Alastor are “oh that’s relatable,” which is hilarious, because like... I don’t like characters because I relate to them, ever, but because I think they’re interesting in their strange/different ways. Alastor is the sole exception I can think of where half the reasons I like him is because I look at him and go “oh big mood.” Other ace or aro characters I’ve seen in the past just make me go “oh... okay. cool. nice, representation for me” and then I don’t really care about them. Alastor, though, the SECOND I learned he was ace, something in my brain went “FUCK YES. ONE OF OURS.” I immediately sat down and started writing a character study fic about Alastor being ace/aro in the exact same precise way that I’m ace/aro, and that was even before we got confirmation that he was aro. I was ready to go all in on him anyway.
- Half the reason I like his ace/aro-ness when I don’t care about it as much on other characters is because like... usually, when you get an ace/aro character, it goes one of two ways:
1) their entire character is built around/“in tune with” their ace/aro-ness, in a way. Most obvious when you have the stereotypical “robot/alien that cannot love,” but also seen in “character that is naive and pure and innocent and lustless,” “character that acts like an actual literal child,” “character that acts like a bad autism cliche,” “character that’s too cold or cruel or emotionless to feel love,” etc. And that’s boring, when they’re only ace/aro because the writer cannot imagine a character Like That being any other way, or because the writer cannot imagine an ace/aro being Any Other Way.
Or, 2) they’re written as “too normal,” as in, like, NOTHING ABOUT THEIR PERSONALITY or life experiences or anything seems shaped AT ALL by the fact that they do not share an internal sense of lust and/or romance that most of the rest of the human species not only has, but also is obsessed with.
And Alastor falls in neither camp. He’s gregarious and talkative and puts on little performances wherever he goes, and he obnoxiously butts in on somebody else’s group project by begging for an opportunity to help out and then obnoxiously volunteers his friends who hate him to help with the group project, and he’s manipulative and dangerous and secretive and violent, and he hides his emotions and he disguises when he’s feeling weak... and also the quickest way to throw him off his game is to make a sexual pass at him because he’s blindsided so hard by it that it’s like for a moment there he forgot that sex exists.
And that’s what I want to see. A character whose personality isn’t based on/tied into his ace/aro-ness, BUT we can clearly see his character IS INFLUENCED by the fact that he views the world through a completely different lens from everyone else.
I can imagine that Alastor had to puzzle through What Is Love/What Is Desire, purely on a psychological “what’s going on inside other people’s heads?” level, as an outside observer incapable of participating it and trying to understand it based on anecdotes and fictionalized accounts and descriptions and conversations, comparing it to the emotions inside his own head and trying to go “so it’s kind of like this feeling plus that one and those, but More, and Different, and in that Other Direction.” I can imagine that as a kid Alastor “decided” to have crushes because he knew it was about that time it should be starting, and it hadn’t happened by then, so maybe what he needs to do is pick whoever he thinks is best-looking and get going with the crushing on them, right? I can imagine that Alastor spent his teen years waiting for his desires to “turn on” the way they did for everyone else, and being slightly puzzled when they took so long, but also okay with it because the more he thought about it the more it seemed like it was probably a nuisance—no one around him was someone he’d like to be attracted to—so he was fine with the fact it was taking so long, and he sort of assumed that it wasn’t because he didn’t have the capacity for desire but because none of his peers were desirable to him. I can imagine that he had his first kiss at like fifteen and thought it was horrible and gagged on it, and within an hour decided this was absolutely hilarious.
I can imagine Alastor having all these experiences—which are experiences I had. I’ve never seen another ace/aro character I can easily and naturally imagine having a single experience in common with me. Because no other ace/aro characters feel to me like ace/aro characters. They’re either characters with an ace/aro sticker arbitrarily and meaninglessly slapped on them, or they’re a walking stereotype about lovelessness.
- Besides Alastor’s spectacular Asexuelle Panique™ face, the other single line that made me latch onto him was “Why does anyone do anything? Sheer! Absolute! Boredom!” There are some very specific character types that I’m an absolute sucker for, and one of them is: extremely powerful character, at the top of their game, unstoppable and uncontrollable and unmatched, a loner who likes it that way, BUT they’re bored as hell, either because they’ve met all their goals or because they don’t know how to set any—and the boredom is eating them up inside, it’s driving them slowly mad, the sheer tedium of trying to fill one day after another with nothing to do is weighing down on them, if depression is usually compared to a heavy rain then this depression is like an endless empty waiting room, or depression like solitary confinement, or depression like an unmoving sun shining on an infinite flat desert, the depression of a completely empty hollow life leveled flat by infinite interminable boredom, a boredom they would do ANYTHING to get rid of, a boredom that’s like a withdrawal, a boredom that makes your hands shake and your pulse quicken with desperate need for the drug to stave off the withdrawal symptoms, but god, you don’t even know what the drug IS, you just know you NEED it, some form of stimulation, ANY stimulation, you’re going mad in this empty desert with your hands trembling and the withdrawal clouding your mind—
Have I mentioned that I have ADHD? Did you know that untreated ADHD can result in depression specifically due to chronic mental understimulation? I keep telling myself “bruh, don’t headcanon Alastor as having ADHD, you don’t even headcanon that he has any other traits that line up with ADHD symptoms,” but like. That one line. “Sheer! Absolute! Boredom!” I felt that in my very bones. There is desperation in that man. There is desperation in him that speaks to me like nothing else does. Like to the point that if it turns out that Alastor secretly DOES have a secret evil manipulative scheme going on I’m going to be annoyed/disappointed specifically because his driving motive isn’t boredom, lmao.
Anyway I feel for characters like that. I like to explore that desperate despairing boredom. I like to force them through that understimulation withdrawal, drive them to do stupid wild desperate things to try to get the stimulation they need. And then, when I’m feeling nice, I like to help them find a cure. Usually I imagine the cure is “dude, you’re such a loner that you’ve cut yourself off from the rest of the human race, you have NO human connections, even when you’re technically interacting with other people you’re still completely emotionally isolated inside your own shell. Make some goddamn friends and start to care about other people and their lives and you’ll find that the act of having other people exist in your world who matter to you will give you that stimulation you’re desperately missing.” Because these desperately bored characters are also desperately emotionally isolated. And they might be happy/content in their isolation—but they’re not doing anything to cure their own understimulation like that.
(“Hey OP is that how you cured your understimulation?” nah I got ADHD meds.)
- Remember everything that I just said about how much I love that Alastor is aro? Well forget everything I just said. Chuck it out the window. Bye.
So every once in a while I find a character that, for whatever reason, I really, really, really want to see pining. I want them to be in love, and I want it to be unrequited, and I want it to go on for years. I want them sobbing in private and then hiding it completely when they face anyone else. I want them to hurt so bad they feel like they can’t breathe. I want them unable to think about anything but their beloved. I want it festering inside them like an infected wound. I want it to hurt. Forever.
(“Hey OP do you uh, do you ever, yknow, want them to get their loved one?” yeah sure whatever)
For some reason, Alastor is one of those characters. Why? I dunno. I haven’t figured out my mental pattern on these ones yet. Maybe it’s specifically because it’s so incongruous with his outward appearance/and attitude. Maybe it’s because he’d do a really really good job at hiding it, but also I think he’s probably kind of a mess inside under his mask, and I think adding unrequited desire under that mask would mess him up anymore in really spectacular ways. Like a china cabinet that shifted in an earthquake so that if you open all the doors all the plates will fall out and break, except they’re already all broken inside of the china cabinet, but he’s in denial about that as long as he doesn’t open the door. I dunno, I’m speculating.
- On that note: I feel like he’s probably, like, hypercompetent and super powerful and super successful on the outside, but actually he’s a sort of screwed up dork who’s got no idea what he’s doing. (I present the furby organ as supporting evidence.) I like extremely powerful deeply feared dorks, ESPECIALLY when they have no idea what they’re doing.
- Also, affable villains. Totally friendly/sociable and totally evil.
- I dig his weird radio schtick. Like, Radio Stuff isn’t a thing I specifically like about characters, but on him I think it’s cool. Character gimmicks that can go a lot of ways and that you can do a lot of stuff with in character development are fun.
I think that covers all the important bases.
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Star Trek AOS X-Men AU
I will never write this AU but my brain has been obsessed with it all day and maybe writing is out will help.
S'chn T'gai Spock is Rogue.
what’s this, you say? shouldn’t the telepath be Jean Grey?
No.
Touch telepath? Touch adverse, both because of their upbringing and because of their powers? Must be in control and hyper-aware of their environment at all times or they risk accidentally using their powers? Pacifists because they do not want to use their overwhelming strength to accidentally kill others?
Doesn’t like being a mutant half-human, not because being one is bad but because for them, specifically, it only causes pain? Wants to be able to live a normal life by giving up their powers emotions?
Shitty parent(s) and community led them to run away from home?
Extra angst from the “Vulcans don’t have mutations, only humans do” angle.
“Hey why isn’t he Vulcan hur hur” look if i’m not going to saddle him with Cyclops i’m DEFFO not going to saddle him with cyclops’ shitty younger brother.
Leonard Horatio “Bones” McCoy is Wolverine.
Body of a young-to-middle-aged man, personality of an 80 year old angry grandpa.
1000% Done With Your Shit.
Made of quips and snark.
99% Unwillingly dragged into bullshit, 1% running headlong into even weirder bullshit than normal b/c fuck. i have to save people.
Looks like he could kill you. Absolutely could kill you. Is way too gentle to actually kill you, but he’ll growl at you if you comment about that.
Failed family, pretty goddamned upset about this.
The inherent comedy potential of “our doctor, who runs faster than anyone whose power isn’t speed-enhancing, and who avoids physical conflict but is 110% not afraid to take a scalpel to the jugular, is secretly a probably-immortal regenerative powers mutant” is just too goddamned good
He experiments on himself constantly to find cures for various things, never seems to suffer permanent ill effects?
Bones canonically lives to be like 140, probably through sheer spite and anxiety?
I’m a little sad Cyclops isn’t a better fit for Spock b/c the Spock/Bones dynamic is very similar to the Cyclops/Wolverine dynamic.
Technically this fits TOS Bones better b/c Deforest Kelly was tiny in comparison to the rest of the cast but thematically it’s fine, it’s fine. Shh.
James Tiberius Kirk is Angel.
“Angel? The guy whose powers is has-wings? Not even Archangel, who at least has metal wings?” yes, keep up.
Savior complex? Hides part of self to pass as “normal?” Famous parents, and everyone assumes he’s a spoilt binch because of it?
Love of flight? The allegory of being too different to fit in, but just similar enough to “pass” if no one’s looking too closely?
Also consider: Kirk succeeds b/c of his phenomenal intelligence and charisma, not because he’s superhuman. Giving him one of the amazing powers would feel too much like turning him into Kahn.
Pavel Chekov is Jubilee.
they are both baby.
no one takes them seriously until they blow something up.
sort of the audience stand-in for “what the hell is going on” moments. reacts like a real person, not like a batshit insane superhero.
the mental image of chekov in a yellow trenchcoat is just TOO GOOD.
side note: TOS Pavel Chekov would be Gambit.
No, i will NOT accept criticism on this.
Funny accent that SHOULD be kinda offensive, but somehow...isn’t?
Looks are WILDLY incongruous with their personality.
Tries to be a ladies man, is very bad at it.
Inexplicable fan fav.
Can do one thing really well and has turned it into a gimmick.
“What are you, 12?” “I’M THIRTY-FIVE?!”
Montgomery “Scotty” Scott is Nightcrawler.
TELEPORTATION.
Gadgeteer genius.
Cheerful, almost pathologically so. Takes a swift dive into “depressed drunk” when not 100% sunshine.
Anxiety (TM).
Look I’ll be honest this one is flimsy at best. I just want to see the teleporter manning the teleporters okay? also i’m love both scotty and nightcrawler.
Forge would have been a better choice thematically but FUCK forge.
Nyota Uhura is Shadowcat.
“But why not Storm?” Look, Uhura deffo DESERVES Storm’s powers. She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll shoot you in the face.
But just saying “oh the black character is CLEARLY the same as the other black character” is not only lazy, it’s...frankly kinda racist?
Uhura is ABSOLUTELY the type of person who would walk straight thru a wall to avoid your nonsense. Just. Mid-argument, instead of slamming a door, she just walks through an adjacent wall.
She is the only person on board who can’t be subjected to the dreaded “i will power-walk after you to continue this argument.”
She is the gossip queen. Catch her lurking in between walls and popping in on your convos.
She WILL walk directly through you if you do not move.
Also very kind and VERY bi.
She just doesn’t have much angst, you know? She’s solid.
Hikaru Sulu is Rose Red.
I WANTED HIM TO BE DEADPOOL SO BAD. WISECRACKING? GAY AS HELL? A SLIGHTLY CRACKED SWEETHEART? SWORDS????? but that wouldn’t really work with the rest of the characters so he gets plant powers instead.
I mean what x-man could compare to sulu? Sword fighting, plant loving, probably-secretly-a-pirate sulu?
He ABSOLUTELY still has a sword, btw. I’m not taking that away from him.
fuck it sulu is his own mutant now. No headcannons for sulu. sulu is deadpool if deadpool had plant powers instead of healing cancer. Cancer is cured in the future anyways. my au my rules.
Christine Chapel is Emma Frost.
Dry wit, takes no shit.
Inexplicably not running this entire show, despite being the only sane crew member.
Has WAY more power than anyone gives her credit for.
Deffo has the villain powerset, but she isn’t a villain.
I’m a huge fan of people with telepathy being healers instead of being like. Superweapons.
Uses her diamond form to keep up with Doctor “I need to save everyone and therefore hypos are my best friend“ ““Bones”“ McCoy. Also uses the diamond form’s reduced emotional state to keep herself from throttling him.
Janice Rand is not a mutant.
She is ABSOLUTELY aware that everyone else is a mutant.
She stays in her own goddamn lane about it.
Everyone assumes she IS a mutant and just has like. Some very minor power? but no. she is hypercompetent and not an asshole.
Her superpower is keeping up with everyone’s shit.
At some point she absolutely snaps and punches out like, a Klingon or something. she’s so tired of this bullshit, y’all.
Bonus:
Kahn Noonien Singh is Doctor Doom.
“But Doctor Doom isn’t a mutant?” correct.
He thinks he’s better than anyone else but he gets beat up by the human equivalent of a hyperactive squirrel.
Some Random Redshirt is Multiple Man.
Every time a Redshirt dies it’s an instance of this guy.
His name is Tobias Heinz, in honor of one of my favorite short fanfic series.
Christopher Pike is Cyclops.
Big dad energy.
Kinda a douchebag sometimes?
He’s trying his best and he’s proud of you but honestly? He’s pretty glad he’s not leading this show.
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chapter 3 of to see you home is here! [kristanna / m / aka selkie au]
chapter 1 / 2
In the city, she would have taken the measurements, written them down, sent them off with a maid, and the paper-wrapped package would have been waiting on her doorstep by nightfall.
“This broad across,” she said, holding her hands nearly twice her own shoulder-width apart.
The shopkeeper nodded. “How tall?”
She stepped back towards the door, eyeing it, and raised up slightly on her toes so she could tap a spot only a few inches below the top of the frame. “To there, I think.”
The man nodded. “We have nothing that size in stock.”
In the city, they would have made it for her within a day, and she would have paid the exorbitant price for such fast work without batting an eye.
“But,” he went on, “perhaps I have something upstairs in my trunk.”
He thudded upstairs, leaving her to look around the sparse offerings of the general store. Most of it was scattered offerings of fishing gear; nets, rods, a few tools to repair those, and two pairs of black rubber boots that looked secondhand. There were a handful of farm implements, a few stacks of basic clothing and textiles, ropes and nails and hammers and, for some reason, a women’s straw hat with an incongruously bright red ribbon.
She drifted past it all-- it was meant for the rare newcomer, or for when a well-used item finally gave up the ghost-- to the shelves of food. There were glimmering jars of pickled white fish she knew the shopkeeper made in his own kitchen, tins of tomato paste that cost so much she raised her eyebrows, and dusty sacks of potatoes and onions she was sorting through when she heard the heavy footsteps return.
“I’ve got one set of clothes,” the shopkeeper said. “From my younger days. It’ll do well enough if he’s not particularly vain.”
She nodded. “Don’t think he has the choice to be right now.”
The man chuckled at that. “What else’ll you be needing, then?”
“Three pounds of potatoes and one of onions. And some more clean bandages.”
“And how much have you brought me?”
She shook her head. “Not a trade this time. Haven’t had time to fish.”
“Twenty pieces, then. The clothes are a gift.”
“I don’t need charity.”
“Aye, but this sailor you’ve found does,” he pointed out. “If he’s washed up without even a stitch of clothing and no boat in sight. And I’ll have to say after the preacher’s last visit it’ll weigh on me if I don’t do my part to help.”
She raised her eyebrows as she handed over the coin and collected her bounty. “What’d he say, then? Hellfire and brimstone?”
The man gave her an inscrutable look. “‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’”
She shoved her packages into the sack and bid him farewell, the wooden door creaking shut behind her, and that was that.
In the city, the maid would have spread rumors of the male guest she had squirreled away in her rooms, and by the end of the night she’d have had half a dozen callers coming to inquire after him or to offer her sanctimonious advice about propriety or trying to sneak past her when she fetched tea from the kitchen to get a good look at him. And there’d be a mention of the whole scandal in the society pages, and her sister would be cross with her, never mind the horrible lecture from her mother.
Then again, she’d never have gotten to this point at all. A strange man washing up entirely naked would have been taken to a hospital if he was lucky and the madhouse if he wasn’t, interrogated for hours on end by the police, ended up in the papers and maybe the circus if things had been particularly dull lately, and she never would have encountered him at all apart from seeing an inked illustration in the paper that might have caught her eye for a moment as she watched her father reading it across the breakfast table.
She shifted the sack of potatoes where it was slung over her shoulder. She’d never much cared for the city.
----
The sound of the door opening woke him up. For the first time, when his eyes met hers, they were clear.
She set down the bags she’d carried for the last two miles, rolling her shoulders to soften the ache that had already burrowed deep into them. “Good to see you awake,” she said, crossing over to him.
As she knelt in front of him, for the first time, he opened his mouth and spoke, his voice hoarse but still somehow softer than she’d expected. She didn’t recognize the language, and so she shook her head, and his brows drew together. He tried another tongue, this one sharper around the edges, but she still didn’t recognize it. Frustrated, he leaned back against the bed, his brown eyes looking darker than ever.
“Sorry to disappoint,” she said, raising the back of her hand to his forehead again. To her relief, at last it was cool. “Your fever’s broken, though,” she said, surprising even herself when she smiled.
He looked a little surprised, too, his eyes questioning as they stared intently into hers. “Good,” she said, hoping he’d at least understand something as simple as that. “It’s good.”
Still he just looked at her. With a sigh, she rose to her feet and went back over to the bags, pulling out the clothes the shopkeeper had given her. She tossed them to the stranger, and he caught them in his broad hands.
“I do have some sense of decency, you know,” she said. “Can’t let you keep lying around bare as the day you were born, especially now that you’ll be able to get up.”
Already he was rising, the blanket dropping to the floor. She turned away as quickly as she could, but not before catching a glimpse once more of his well-muscled frame, gilded around the edges by the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the lone window.
Sort of a shame to keep that covered up, she thought, a blush rising in her cheeks when she felt the temptation to steal another glance at him. He certainly wasn’t the first naked man she’d seen, but it’d been a long while now since she’d wanted to touch one, wanted to know if his shoulders were as solid as they looked.
You know how he feels, idiot, she reminded herself, you dragged him up here and bandaged him, didn’t you?
He spoke again, only one short word, and she turned back to find him fully dressed in the shopkeeper’s clothes. To her surprise, they didn’t hang on him quite as loosely as she’d expected; his shoulders nearly filled out the worn white shirt, though the vee at the collar dipped low enough to reveal the bandage still on his chest. He’d tucked it in to the black pants so it didn’t billow so badly around his waist; the extra padding was probably the only thing keeping them on. His feet were still bare, though, and she mentally kicked herself for forgetting a pair of the boots.
“It’ll do for now, I suppose,” she said, tearing her eyes away from him as she crossed to the wall and pointed to the weathered map pinned above the stove. “Look here, now. Let’s see if we can get you sorted out.”
After a moment, he stood behind her. She’d known perfectly well he would loom over her, the top of her head only barely rising to his shoulder, but it was a different thing altogether to feel the sheer size of him behind her, close enough that she could hear the faint sound of his breathing.
She stood on her toes and pointed to northern tip of the peninsula she called home, glancing back over her shoulder. “That’s us,” she explained, and despite the language barrier she knew from the way his eyebrows shot up that he understood her perfectly well.
He reached over her and tapped his own finger several inches away, on the southern end of a small island, before reaching back and setting his hand on his chest.
“Wow,” she breathed, turning back to look at him. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”
A sadness grew in his eyes as he continued gazing at the map. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as it struck her exactly how difficult it would be for him to return home with no boat or money to buy one with, no way of explaining his situation if he didn’t even understand the most rudimentary words of the language spoken here, not even a friendly face to keep him company.
Except you, she reminded herself. You can help.
“It’s alright,” she found herself saying, and at last he did look at her. She smiled at him again, hoping it did something to comfort him. “You’re welcome here, long as you need. You’ll have to start helping now, of course, not with the light but maybe with the fishing and some of the chores, and I get a bit of an allowance from the government each month, so maybe I can set some aside for you, or you can do odd jobs for the folks in town and--”
His eyebrows drew closer and closer together with each word that escaped her lips. Finally she stuttered to a halt, realizing how utterly useless it was to ramble at him like this. Old habits die hard, she thought morosely, a little embarrassed at how quickly her old annoying tendencies had resurfaced.
She set a hand against her chest, just over her heart. “Anna,” she said quietly. “That’s me. I’m Anna.”
He nodded. “Anna,” he said, testing it out for himself, and a prickle ran down her spine at the sound of her name in his mouth.
“Yes. And you?” she asked, pointing at him.
He only shook his head.
“Anna,” she said again, tapping her own chest. “Anna.”
She pointed at him, but he shook his head again.
“You haven’t got a name?” she questioned. “Not at all?”
He shrugged, looking apologetic, and she sighed. “Never mind, then. I’ll just...I’ll pick something to call you, I suppose. At least now I know you can call for me if you need me.”
He nodded, though she could tell by his expression he didn’t understand, and she began to move away. Before she could, though, he caught her chin carefully between two broad fingers, stilling her.
“Anna,” he said quietly, and she knew it was his way of telling her thank you.
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“Stop that,” Aziraphale said as they walked past a flowering crab apple tree, its white blossoms swaying gently in the breeze.
Crowley looked utterly unconcerned, walking along with his hands shoved deep into their pockets. “Don’t know what you mean.”
Aziraphale scowled, but they went on. The park was practically deserted, leaving them plenty of leeway in their wandering. Eventually he passed Crowley a paper cup of hot cocoa, which he hadn’t had before but nonetheless passed over anyway. Crowley said nothing as he took it, but there was a familiar look around his mouth that meant he was pleased.
After a few minutes they passed another flowering tree, this time a lone magnolia. The pink and white flowers had just started to open; the tree was laden with them.
“I said,” Aziraphale huffed, “to stop that.”
This time Crowley couldn’t help it. He grinned. “Lovely trees today, aren’t there?”
“Yes, beautiful,” Aziraphale agreed testily as they rounded a corner into what appeared to be a blossoming cherry orchard right in the middle of St James’ Park, which Aziraphale was quite sure had not been there a week or a day or even ten minutes ago. The hazy scent of crushed almonds lingered in the air; the sun filtering down through the branches was crisp and white. “Crowley.”
Crowley stepped in between the trees, entirely incongruous with the delicate pink flowers. “What, don’t like them? Thought you’d appreciate the blooms, to be honest.”
“I do,” Aziraphale snapped. “In spring, when they’re all meant to be blooming.”
“Nothing wrong with a few early blossoms,” Crowley shrugged. He ducked into the branches of one particularly vociferously pink tree and tucked himself against the trunk, leaving Aziraphale no choice but to follow.
“It’s December. You’ll have them all mixed up.”
“They’ll bloom again in season,” Crowley said easily, reaching for Aziraphale’s wrist and pulling him in, “if they know what’s good for them.”
Aziraphale tried valiantly to find a compromise between what he knew he ought to do—which was to roll his eyes and walk on, putting the trees back to dormancy as he went—and what he really wanted to do—which was to step in a little closer and appreciate the moment. The result was that he did step in close, but adopted a vaguely disapproving glare, which then betrayed him by being particularly endearing to Crowley.
“Flower blossoms,” Aziraphale said sourly. “You’d think this sort of beautification thing would be looked down upon Below.” His glare, having failed to have the desired effect upon Crowley, refocused itself on a cluster of blooms that only seemed to relish his attention.
“Ah, but I’m doing it for selfish reasons,” Crowley said. “It’s a bit of a free pass as far as they’re concerned.”
Aziraphale found himself being tugged in a little closer, which he allowed partly because it would have been churlish to decline but mostly because that’s what he wanted too. “What selfish reason is that?”
“This one,” Crowley said, and kissed him, unexpectedly gently.
And then unexpectedly thoroughly.
“Tempter,” Aziraphale declared when they pulled apart, though his meaning was undercut by the sheer affection in his tone. He reached up and tucked a sprig of blossoms behind Crowley’s ear, where it clashed horribly with his red hair.
“I’m going to incinerate that before we leave here,” Crowley warned.
“Fine,” Aziraphale agreed, almost suspiciously easily. “Now tempt me again.”
And so Crowley did, but it wasn’t until he got home hours later and caught sight of himself in a mirror that he realised he’d forgotten about the sprig entirely. Suspiciously was right, he thought, mentally giving the point to Aziraphale. Now that was one hell of a temptation.
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terfs believe that being a trans woman is so morally repugnant that any action that makes their lives even marginally worse is considered a moral action
that's clear, it's fairly normal ends justifying the means thinking, it's just like... so obviously outwardly hateful, it seems incongruous with a social justice mentality. i mean again, fairly basic observations here, but most times I've clicked through to someone being a shithead, they're either stuck in some constant war and the anon hate they get justifies their own vitriolic actions and self victimization, or they're just a for the lulz style classic shit head y'know? there was an element of that in these individuals blogs but it felt more, like, in the past than usual. like more a part of a manifesto than anything actually happening to them in the now, I guess?
like, I guess what it comes down to is this: it's easiest to maintain the moral high ground, in essentially all ideological circles, and indeed in human conduct in general, when you're on the defensive. if you can interpret something as an attack, it's usually away to the races to be a shithead. as such, most ppl I would describe as shithead-like in their behaviour usually have blogs loaded up with 5 note posts from the outgroup they seek to feel attacked by, usually poorly worded, that they can derive victimhood from or debate or whatever. it's like YouTube comments arguing if you could actively search YouTube for comments to argue with, cherry pick the worst ones to defeat, and then parade around on your own YouTube account for all your other fash buddies to see. then, when you see such people making utter fools of themselves, I kinda just go "oh, that's what the imaginary boogeyman in your head looks like", block, and move on (and yes, I do know that that's an extremely lucky position to be able to take, but publicly crucifying them doesn't seem that productive either, don't feed the trolls etc.).
but these people didn't really have any of that, the blog I looked at was like, 30% literally cyberbullying trans women (as in reblogging their selfies in an effort to denigrate them), 30% unhinged convos about aforementioned target of their ire tumblr user ratliker1917 between them and their partner, 30% espousal of the belief that transmisogyny did not and could not exist, that trans women werent real (but he, a trans man (I think?) was), and that gender criticality had brought back meaning to their life and given them agency over their life's narrative, and then like 10% normal anons asking like "oh hey do you have receipts for your callouts of every single popular leftist and/or trans woman" and them going "yes I do *proceeds to not link them*" and then going back to everything being perfectly normal
it just is... I dunno, again it's probably privileged of me to draw any particular line in the sand between these and quote regular terfs unquote, but the sheer absence of self doubt or criticality is concerning nonetheless
#like it just feels like. their irony blinders are currently so large as to#prevent them from breathing#idk if what i just wrote is smart or interesting at all but hey#at least that means im still more self-critical than these fucking people
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What superpowers do you think LiS characters would have?
Saw this topic on Reddit and, well, I just had to respond. This is what I wrote:
Let's have some fun, shall we?
Max: n/a (we love you just the way you are)
Chloe: Resurrection. Nothing other than old age can permanently kill her. She can be shot, hit by a train, stabbed, whatever, but she'll bounce right back to life anywhere between 10 seconds to a minute. It's not regeneration, though, so normal wounds can still be inflicted and she has to heal normally. Unless, of course, she just shoots herself in the head. Seriously, why would she bother sitting in the hospital with a broken leg for two months when eating a bullet is so much quicker?
Rachel: While pyrokinesis is a popular pick, I'd vote that she instead has powers of the classic four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. It's just that Fire is super easy to summon forth on account that it's tied to anger. Air is tied to happiness, Water to serenity/peacefulness, and Earth to something else (forgive me, I'm actively pulling these out of my ass and can't think of something at the moment).
Kate: Psychometry, the ability to "read" objects by touching them. She could, for example, touch a note and immediate get impressions on who wrote it and their state of mind while doing so. The longer the person was in contact with the item, the stronger the impressions and the more clear the information she can derive. Touching living things, fortunately, doesn't automatically trigger her powers. She has to choose for them to activate in that case, which she does so only reluctantly as the sensory input can be overwhelming.
Victoria: Speedster. And hates it. Seriously, what does it matter that she can run at 300 mph if it completely ruins her hair? Not to mention her damn shoes. Those were Jimmy Choos, for fuck's sake! Stupid powers.
Courtney: Flight. Top speed is unknown but enjoys getting away from it all from time to time. Victoria is jealous of her powers (can you imagine the shots she could take while airborne?!) but tries not to show it.
Taylor: Telepathy, and loves it. Now, she has the inside scoop on everyone she could possibly want! Or would, if it wasn't for her sick mother (Empathic Broadcaster) who loves her so damn much and has inadvertently made Taylor super conscious about invading other people's thoughts. While she loves gossip, she has a healthy respect for other people's privacy, too.
Brooke: Multiplication of Self. Can create doppelgangers of herself, up to three (for now), that can all act independent from one another. Total duration is six hours, divided amongst the clones (so, 1 clone can last 6 hrs, 2 can last 3 hrs, etc.). Memories transfer back to Brooke when they fade away, meaning she can take a LOT of classes simultaneously. Principal Wells has attempted to say that using her clones in this manner should mean she should have to pay 4x the tuition but failed to win the argument.
Dana: Elasticity. Some thought her power to be rather weak in comparison to others but two things really make her shine. First, she seems to have some sort of invulnerability as well, as not even Victoria running at close to top speed was able to penetrate her body (it was an accident, and both came out of it fine, if not a bit embarrassed). Second, she can stretch herself incredibly thin (like, hair thin) and not suffer any adverse effects. Incongruously, her clothing stretches with her, so long as it's skintight.
Juliet: Healing Touch. If she can touch someone, she can heal them of any disease or physical injury. Mental injuries, however, are trickier. She can alleviate (not cure) the pain of the sufferer (things like severe depression, PTSD, etc.) but only by taking the pain herself. For obvious reasons, she doesn't use this ability all that often.
Nathan: Immunity, Specialized: cannot suffer any negative effects of any drug nor can he ever get addicted to one. In addition, he possesses a very unusual type of Empathic Broadcast/Telepathy/Psychometry: he can induce the effects of any drug he's ever taken onto anyone within 10 feet of him. So, if he smokes weeds, he can get everyone around him high. Makes him incredibly popular at parties.
Warren: Super Strength and Invulnerability (think Mr. Incredible). Tries to use his powers to impress the ladies. Only sometimes works.
Steph: Telekinesis. Upper weight/mass limit unknown, as she's been seen lifting entire tractor trailers without any strain. She does have incredible control at a minute level, too. Many have accused her of using her powers to cheat at D&D. She has vehemently denied these allegations.
Principal Wells: Regeneration. Perfect for his liver as he's an unapologetic alcoholic.
Samuel: Animal Communication (or, as Chloe calls it, the Disney Princess Power). Seems spacey at times as he can't turn off this ability and he hears them constantly, though distance does mute the effect. With permission, Juliet once tried to alleviate his pain but it didn't work (he doesn't see it as a detrimental thing any more, having had this power for over 40 years now).
Joyce: Creation, Specialized. Can summon food from thin air, great for busy nights at the diner. This is the real reason the menu at the Two Whales diner is so small: the fewer items she has to deal with, the easier it is to summon the food. In addition, it has to be food she's familiar with. Ask her to summon escargot, for example and she just won't be able to do it. If you explain they're cooked snails, she might be able to summon a plate of snails. Don't be surprised if they're still moving, though.
David: Penitent Stare. Anyone who looks into David's eyes while in close proximity feels a powerful compulsion to confess any and all crimes to him. However, there are drawbacks. First, it requires eye contact. Second, it can be overcome through sheer willpower. Third, there's no telling what will be confessed. It could be a recent murder. It could be the time the victim took one too many cookies from the cookie jar when he was five years old. Once a crime is confessed, it never comes up again. David tried to use his power to become a police officer but was dismissed from the force as his power was too unreliable. He's a security guard at Blackwell as the teens that attend school are more likely to confess recent crimes and often lack the willpower to resist.
Don’t take this list too seriously. With the exception of Rachel, I was trying to come up with power pairings that hadn’t been done before and even grant powers to those characters that are usually ignored in superpower AUs.
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For marginalised creators: step off the social media grind (since online advertising is probably bullsh*t)
Oddly amusing how the Malcolm Gladwell/Freakonomics style of writing (dress up a well-known argument with spicy anecdotes and breezy writing) has been revived for this article, titled “The new dot com bubble is here: it’s called online advertising”.
Online advertising is the act of creating behavioural user profiles that are bundled, bought and sold.
Likewise, if you're grinding at social media day after day, hoping to "get ahead" -- especially if you're a marginalised artist/techie/creator [LGBT, neurodiverse, non-white, etc.] -- that type of approach almost a complete waste of item and energy.
After several years spent experimenting with promoting this project and its predecessors (while watching others use social media as well), there are three broad classes of effective, pure social-media marketing:
1. sex
2. extremism
2a. fear-mongering
2b. hate speech
3. bullying
The distinction "pure" is used in the sense of social media being used on its own, without assistance from real-world marketing efforts.
(This distinction will become more clearly relevant later.)
A basic rule of thumb for broadcasting your message: between one and five percent of your audience will to pay attention to any given item.
Think about how many followers you have on Twitter. Now think about 1% of that number, then 5%. It's a relatively tiny group.
Second, consider how many messages you're competing with every time you tweet. This is one of the weirder aspects social media "marketing" -- it's essentially a clique of starving creators following/liking/retweeting each other, all begging for attention in hopes of getting paid.
A longer tweet-thread in the previous iteration of this project clearly explained how social media marketing is obvious nonsense.
Short version: The only people who get paid are the social network operators, and hucksters at the top selling "marketing" to people who don't know better.
Pure versus real: instead of wasting hundreds of hours trying to take a shortcut to success, remember that you can do exponentially more in a fraction of the time...
...by just going out and meeting people in the real world.
It's also useful to be honest/realistic about _why_ you spend time "marketing" or "educating" others on social media (the vast majority of whom know you, agree with you, and/or have already heard most of what you want to say).
And arguing practically never changes anyone's mind.
Here are three examples that show effective approaches to social media.
This is relevant to Ctrl.Alt.SciFi since many followers here are indie creators and marginalised people who want to find alternatives for self-promotion that will reach a niche audience.
1. The first example is relevant due to the sheer number of people trying the same template.
In this specific instance, an artist became mildly popular on Twitter. Suddenly, her art started competing with ever-sexier selfies. Then breast augmentation. Then an endless travelogue.
She deflected criticism by hiding behind her mental health issues and incongruous catchphrases like "body positivity".
Narcissism isn't inherently bad.
It _is_ doubly unfortunate as a desperate bid for attention, later lied about.
But she did find social-media fame and profit.
2. A second artist uses social media to promote her work (she creates jewelry). She's trans and deals with narcolepsy.
It's a simple example of a person who has good reason to use social media for indie marketing; all the more important to learn the medium's limitations as well.
3. There's a hacker/infosec person, famous for being amiably grouchy and a massive misanthrope.
She also has rather severe mental health issues, but embraces them and tries to encourage others on Twitter -- rather than seeing her problems as a burden to be escaped or downplayed.
The key with her "stardom", though, is that she's actually well-known offline: teaches infosec at an Ivy-league university; was once a regular face at hacker meetups in her city; etc.
"Social media grind" (and extremely candid/personal disclosure) was not the key to her success.
Summary: if you're a marginalised person looking for ways to market yourself, use social media as a secondary/tertiary avenue for self-promotion.
Or, accept that marketing via social media will waste hundreds/thousands of hours that could have been spent learning and creating.
Key: don't fall into the trap of self-disclosure (revealing private information about yourself) for attention or to be seen as "authentic" for followers/likes/etc.
Emotion is just free entertainment on social media, and there's no such thing as a "delete" button on the internet.
#lgbt#marginalised#asian#latino#latinx#black#women#disabled#non-neurotypical#neurodiverse#altscifi#ctrlaltscifi
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A SORT OF XMEN INSPIRED G.O.T. CROSSOVER THAT NO ONE ASKED FOR
One of my fanfic ideas from the SanSan closet.There’s really no dialogue, just a fanfic idea I had (for this fanfic I picture Peter Steele as Sandor), modern AU, maybe slight DubCon for a bit of mind manipulation.
A Peek at the story idea:
Sansa journeys to Kings Landing to join the secluded academy The Red Keep after she cannot restrain the strange dreams and powers plaguing her since she was a child. She is an Empath. She senses people’s distress and it all becomes a little too much for her to handle on her own especially those dreams of the Strange Man which leaves her weak and gasping from the sheer rage in them…
Excerpt:
In the rank depths of Flea Bottom annexing the glamourous and pristine city of Kings Landing, a secret meeting took place. In the dimness of the room, the Head Master of the Red Keep made a deal with the Stranger.
He would not be apprehended by the Red Keep Guard if he would turn away from his ragtag human gang and work under cover for the Red Keep. The Stranger was not amused. And he was in a particularly beatific rage since the Red Keep special retrieval team had brought him in.
Until the Keep’s Headmaster said he had her.
After that, the Stranger listened…
~
One week later
Sansa cautiously made her way down the winding corridor to the Head Master’s office.
Margaery had given her the heads up that the Head Master wanted her to power practice on a new Red Keep recruit. It’d been a while since Sansa had a power practice session and she was looking forward to the distraction it would give her from her obsessive contemplation on whether her Strange Man existed or not. She’d been having the dreams for as long as she could remember. It was what made her come to the Red Keep in the first place despite her parents’ caution. The old fashioned Northerners her family was did not totally trust the Red Keep, only known to those families with gifts, to keep their innocent tall little girl safe..
But after the first few rough months and despite the antagonism she’d faced from Cersei, the resident Red Keep queen bee who resented Sansa for becoming the Head Master’s favourite student, she had grown to like it here.
Except that the dreams hadn’t stopped.
The memory of the latest dream, just last night, assailed her again. She’d had yet another dream of the Strange Man, a dream filled with his anger and pain.
The Strange Man’s startling grey eye had been so clear, almost like silvered glass, his gaze piercing and sharp as if his rage was something that could leap out of his eyes and cut her. But the moment she reached out and touched his face as she always inevitably did, she felt that strong current of rage within him ebb away.
The moment she felt the warmth of his chiselled cheek, she’d wake up, hot and shivering under her heap of blankets.
Despite the confusing whirl of pain she felt whenever she dreamed of him, the idea that the Strange Man might be a figment of her imagination depressed her. Somehow the dreams, which had first affected her like nightmares, became something familiar that she had grown to expect. Like her favourite pair of pajamas she’d slip over her skin at night, she had begun to take a certain comfort in the dreams. She didn’t understand it. There was no doubt that she was using her power of calm in the dream, she was soothing the Strange Man in the only way she knew how but then why did she feel reassured as well?
Taking a deep breath, she came to a stop before the heavy gilded door that led to the Head Master’s suite of offices. She dismissed all memories of the dream and cautiously knocked.
The Head Master summoned her in.
As soon as she walked into the spacious office, she saw him.
Her dreams dissolved around her like torn bits of burned paper fluttering in the wind, the black and white static of those dreams in no way preparing her for the full Technicolor, thumping decibel of the Strange Man in the flesh.
In her dreams, she’d always seen his eyes but never the entirety of him.
The Strange Man wore a fierce frown and she could see only one of his silver eyes blazing down at her because one side of his face was half hidden behind the dark tangle of hair that skimmed down to his broad shoulders.
Sansa decided that he was at once the most beautiful and ugliest being she’d ever seen.
The giant man looming before her was the sculpted towering statue of the Warrior brought to life but it was the hate that shone bright in his silver eyes that made him ugly.
She could barely hear the Head Master’s banter as he introduced her to the Red Keep’s newest recruit. All she heard was his name.
Sandor Clegane was the Strange Man’s name
Sandor.
Despite encountering his rage in her dreams, she still did not feel prepared to face it, face him, in all his terrifying reality. He took a step towards her and it was only then she realized how much she had to crane her neck up to look at him.
She’d never had to do that before. To her everlasting chagrin, she’d always been taller than almost every male she’d encountered.
The Strange Man, well Sandor, looked her up and down, his frown etched even deeper now.
“Hope you’ve been warned, girl. You’ve got your bluidy work cut out for you. Think you can calm a killer?”
Sansa was startled at the deep sense of disappointment she felt when she realized he had no knowledge of their shared dreams.
Looking at the harsh skepticism displayed on the visible side of his face, she knew he wasn’t aware of the countless times she’d reached across time and space to do just that. To calm his rage.
A killer he said.
Despite the flutter of shock she felt, Sansa decided she would show him that he could not intimidate her, she would not let his festering anger deter her from what she did best.
“I’ve worked with killers before, sir.”
Many times during her training, she had been required to power practice on hardened criminals in the Black Cells, under heavy guard of course. None of tem had shown her as much resentment as this man did.
He doesn’t know of the dreams, she reminded herself as the Head Master directed them to sit opposite each other, only a narrow desk between them that was dwarfed by his large frame.
Sandor glared at her for a long moment and she unflinchingly met his stare until with a rather slow deliberate movement of one large hand, he moved the pitch-dark tangle of hair off his cheek and jaw.
Her mouth went dry as he revealed the gruesome scarring covering most of the right side of his face. The knotted flesh was pitted and gnarled and as vivid as a raw red wound.
He seemed to take a savage satisfaction in her horror, his slow smirk not revealing the pain she could sense brimming within him.
Tears stung and blurred her vision as she thought of the physical torment he must have endured to survive such a scar but she made every effort to blink them away. She averted her eyes, fearing she was staring too hard at his disfigurement then watched as he reached across the desk and held out huge callused hands towards her.
Even as he extended his palms, marked with scars different than those that covered his face, she could sense the mockery in him, just as Cersei and her entourage had mocked her when she first came to the Red Keep.
He fully expected her to flee, expected her to evade his touch.
Sansa reached out and took his hands in hers.
She felt his jolt of surprise and then her palms were drowned under the heaviness of his and that blast of fiery rage hit her again, even more intense than the dreams and there was turmoil there too and fear.
And there was also the effect of his flesh on hers, his hands in hers, the feel of his warm skin sent a jolt of her own through her as if her heart had stopped beating and then her entire body shocked back to life.
He didn’t really want to touch her!
No one had ever been so unwilling to touch her, not even Cersei who had succumbed to the calming power of her touch during one of her earlier power practices.
Sandor fought against her, fought like a drowning man against the current of her empathy. She cried out at the power of his rage beating against her.
He tore his hands out of her grasp, slamming to his feet with such violence that the heavy chairs the Head Master used in his office tumbled over like a light toy in his wake.
The Head Master leapt to his feet as fast as he could as well, moving immediately to stand beside him, a meaty hand on the towering man’s arm, whispering something fiercely that Sansa couldn’t hear. Sansa could only stare at how incongruous the Head Master of the Red Keep looked standing next to this giant.
Sandor.
As she sat there inhaling gulps of air, recovering from her tumultuous interaction with the giant man, she found it surreal that she now knew the name of the stranger who had been haunting her dreams for so long.
The giant man sat before her once again while the Head Master reclaimed his seat a few feet away. In an uncharacteristic gentle tone, he encouraged her to resume her power practice. Sansa glanced at the headmaster. He had always been kind to her where more often than not, he was blunt and no-nonsense with the rest of the Red Keep alumni.
With some caution, she glanced at him.
Sandor had cast his scars under their curtain of dark strands again, head bowed, hands laid out like an offering on the table between them but Sansa could sense that resentment again and how unwilling he was. She’d never had an unwilling participant in her practice before but the Head Master nodded encouragingly.
Taking a fortifying breath, she reached for Sandor’s fingers again. So warm. And then there was that jolt as their skin touched.
His hands were long, large and sturdy like he was. She could see the darker sheen of sweat on his massive chest under his simple dark green t-shirt even though the room was conditioned with cooling vents that kept the heat of Kings Landing at bay.
Sansa mentally prepared herself to feel his rage again, pulling at her inner reserves of calm to counteract his anger but to her utter surprise, she felt nothing as she held his hands.
That had never happened before.
It was then she realized with some shock that he had blocked her out. She had encountered mind blocks before in her power practice but she had always managed to weave her way around them. Like with Cersei. At first she’d blocked Sansa out quite willfully but she had overcome her block almost immediately.
No such luck with Sandor.
No matter how she tried, despite all the practice she’d had at surmounting blocks, she couldn’t get through to him. She closed her eyes tight in concentration feeling the burn of his gaze on her and the burn of his anger roiling in her mind.
An anger she couldn’t diffuse as she usually did! She did not like that for the first time since coming to the Red Keep that her power had failed. She’d taken more pride than she’d thought in how powerful her calming influence was. Her empathy had reached out to even the most stubborn of the Red Keep alumni. Even to the cruelest of the Black Cells prisoners!
Suddenly, she felt the caress of his fingertips against the sensitive underside of her palm. At first, she valiantly tried to ignore the tingles his caresses produced, tried to concentrate only on getting past his block. But then the caresses increased and he started making little circles that she could feel in other places besides her hands. Her eyes flew open. He was peering at her under the fall of his dark hair, icy eyes heated now.
Sansa was immediately flustered, breath caught in her throat until she saw that mocking smirk tilting one side of his unscarred lips not hidden by his hair. She was about to tell him to stop at once when the first sensations hit her.
Every erotic thought, every lewd desire he had ever had, that he ever sated, Sandor sent her way. To her complete and utter embarrassment, Sansa couldn’t contain her moan. She shifted against her seat, trying to fight him off now but he just kept pushing…
The Head Master intervened, moving to pull her hands from Sandor’s except Sansa shook her head violently. “No!”
She wasn’t going to allow Sandor to scare her away like some untried little girl. Sansa had advanced too much in her power to calm, had struggled too hard to prove herself amidst the unforgiving Red Keep alumni to be thrown into chaos by a new recruit...
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Back today with brain fused as ever. Wednesday, January 5th, 2021. 8.50pm.
Yesterday day, and in part, evening too, I was busy mulling over what I would write, some of which being the insanity around BurgerKing being the latest to give in to the minority by putting vegan nuggets on the menu. I have nothing against anyone choosing a vegan diet, and I think it a positive that people are able to enjoy whatever food they desire, I simply fail to get my head around why anyone against factory farming, animal cruelty issues, but pro-environment - so they say, would ever conceive of the idea to enter into any establishment where meat is the main product on the menu and chow down on something vegan, as it's totally incongruous and illogical.
There are ex carnivores who will say they like something which reminds them of the meat they used to eat, why exactly I really don't know or even comprehend trying to understand, and even this was borne out when I took a rare trip to Colonel Sanders before Christmas and was astonished to see on their menu a vegan substitute! Why?
Again, I just don't get why a vegan would purposely go to a fast-food place that predominantly serves meat as the main ingredient and buy a product that is diametrically opposed to the thing they are actually avoiding having anything at all to do with for mostly ethical purposes.
Honestly, I can actually feel my brain crumbling into almost paralytic mind fog as I type this because I'm finding it incredibly difficult to process, and in doing so it's mentally exhausting. I've only been typing for ten minutes and I'm so tired I want to close my eyes and sleep already.
The one salvation from yesterday was the time pleasurably invested in a messaging conversation leading to a phone call whereby I shared a refreshingly enjoyable hour or so with a new female in the perimeter of my life. I couldn't even begin to describe the sheer joy of speaking with a down-to-earth, normal, rational, sensible, balanced human being with no issues, and easygoing to have a meaningful conversation with.
#john langley#bristol#john langley author#john langley blog#john langley bristol writer#john langley tumblr#deaths door diaries bristol#death's door diaries#veganfood#veganism#veganlife#plantbased#burger king#kentucky fried chicken
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