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communistkenobi · 1 year

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I get what you mean through that post about TWD but for the sake of someone who can't articulate why, what is political abt TWD?

do not take what I’m about to say as the only possible interpretation of the walking dead - or zombie apocalypse media more broadly, but twd acts as a handy representative for the genre in the popular north american consciousness I think, so I will be using it interchangeably. But I think there are a couple productive perspectives you can take with this kind of media.

fundamentally I think twd is horror aimed at the middle class. It presents a world where the state is no longer present, where your fear of other people cannot be soothed by calling the police (the protagonist of the show being a cop is notable here). the state in this imaginary is the sole barrier between civilisation and savagery. People turn on each other, loot, destroy property, and are generally untrustworthy. Zombies are an unthinking hoard of non-persons who only spread disease and death. The suburb is no longer safe. The ‘message’ or thesis of twd and shows like it is that human beings are only orderly and polite to one another so long as there is a state to enforce these social norms, and absent that, everyone will turn on each other (the “social contract”). Zombies in this case are less an expression of medical anxieties about a pandemic (although that’s not not a concern), but more so an expression of concerns about ‘mass immigration’ and a general racial intrusion into white suburban life. Zombies aren’t just a plague people deal with, but almost always cause the complete dissolution of American society. I don’t think you can decouple zombies in popular American consciousness from the racial anxieties of white people.

and more deeply than that I think american zombie media is a similar type of expression of what Cesaire calls the boomerang effect - what colonial powers do overseas they will eventually do to themselves. Now he was speaking of Europe’s turn to fascism (fascism in this instance being framed as a form of domestic colonialism), and twd is not necessarily presenting zombies as a punishment we bring on ourselves. America and Canada are also both settler colonial states, meaning that settlers permanently occupy the land they have invaded instead of returning home, so this is slightly different. But I think when people imagine zombie apocalypses, they are working through a scenario where their own civilisation is devastated by some invading force, where their stolen property and land are stolen back from them. They are working through an imagined boomerang effect, a fantasy where they are the blameless victims and their ill-gotten gains are taken from them unjustly. The history of settler colonial states is such a horrific, apocalyptic state of affairs that projecting that back onto oneself is a way of working through that history without ever reckoning with what that means. It is easier to fear colonialism happening to you than to extend sympathy to those who have been dispossessed by your ancestors, and in this configuration, you don’t have to confront your own way of life or the part you play in this history.

And it’s doing other stuff too. I think there’s a lot you can dig into with how masculinity is portrayed in these types of shows - men protecting their families by killing hoards of zombies, by being rewarded at every turn for distrusting other people and being generally anti-social. White men in particular have internalised ideas about masculinity that are bound up in violence and racial superiority, and zombie media provides a handy fantasy in which you’re forced to protect your wife and kids by killing as many people as humanly possible. In this framework, the zombie apocalypse is almost a welcome state of affairs, facilitating a return of traditional masculinity where men can freely express their violent desires, and their victims are mindless diseased non-persons who you are morally obligated to destroy. Zombie apocalypses provide a scenario where masculinity is valuable again. It might be instructive to consider zombie media as “inventing a guy to get mad at” so you have some place to put these ideas about masculine and racial domination. White middle class Americans are probably the safest group of people on planet earth, but because of that sustained safety you need to invent imagined scenarios where the violence of your identity as a white person or a man is still relevant, and so shoving that into a fantasy where you HAVE to kill people is alluring. Of course, whiteness and masculinity still produce a lot of violence in the world and these people are generally violent in both direct and indirect ways (calling the cops on black people, mass shootings, etc), but like it’s harder to consider yourself a conquering hero while dialling 911 you know. I think this is a wish fulfilment fantasy in its purest form, confirming all of their racial paranoias and providing them with a space where they are REQUIRED to kill shitloads of people.

There’s definitely more you can say but I’ll cut it off for now. And just to be clear I’m not saying enjoying twd or the last of us or anything else makes you a white suprematist or whatever, but zombies in popular consciousness are (at least partially) tapping into the anxieties present in white supremacist settler colonial states. I can’t speak to the entire genre, and I’m sure there are instances where zombie apocalypses are presented differently, but at least in this instance twd is generally reactionary and provides a safe space for people to work out their feelings about whiteness and masculinity while living in the imperial core

#asks #book club #<- tagging for cesaire mention. discourse on colonialism is rly good highly recommend #racism tw #zombies

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cin-cant-donate-blood · 2 months

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A thing that has had me unreasonably bothered for more than a year now is seeing, in fairly quick succession, several people claim that post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of dystopia. Every time I am reminded of this it rubs me the wrong way.

For a while I had a hard time articulating a reason why. They are both concerned with undesirable societies, right? Well, my original objection was the fact that post-apocalyptic stories tend to not really feature "society" at all. Is a non-society a kind of undesirable society?

That might seem like a petty complaint, and I thought so too, so the next justification for my dislike of this labeling that I came up with was that dystopian fiction tends to be explicitly political or at least social, while post-apocalyptic fiction even at its best tends to only feature politics as an undertone: the reason the nukes were launched is usually frivolous or unwholesome, and the origin of the Zombie virus is often an evil corporation, but while this is of course not apolitical, it's backstory rather than the point of the narrative.

However, this objection also falls apart. A Clockwork Orange is often cited as dystopian, despite the government and big-picture politics hardly being present at all for most of the story. On the other end of the spectrum, as much as I despise Divergent, it is definitely dystopian fiction, and I'm struggling to think of any real political statement it made at all.

I had a new idea today though, which is why I'm rambling about this thing here and now. I think the fundamental difference is what the audience experiences and expects, going into a dystopian story versus a post-apocalyptic one.

Dystopian stories are satire. They take evils in the world, inflate them ludicrously, and then use this to make a point. All that is missing from traditional satire is the laughter. Orwell inflated the tendencies in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that disgusted him, Burgess inflated criminality, social alienation, generational divides, and at the very end made a rather Foucaultian point about rehabilitative justice. Even the author of Divergent, whose name I forgot and cannot really be bothered to google, made a clumsy point about society trying to fit people into pre-defined roles.

Post-apocalyptic fiction does not tend to have that edge of exaggeration in it. Sure, zombies are not realistic, but plagues are, and the other classic, nuclear winter, is very realistic. More damningly though -- and here's the real point I've been getting to the entire time -- there's usually a perverse undertone of wish fulfillment in post-apocalyptic stories. Maybe not all of them, but the great wave of post-apocalyptic fiction that peaked circa 2014 was almost always driven by a strong undertone of escapism.

The fantasy of Fallout is not dying horribly from cancer to teach the player about the evils of war. The point is to give the player a place where things are simple. This is true for a lot of zombie survival media too: while the zombies are scary, the audience loves to dream about getting to what's real. The zombie movie protagonist who goes from a depressed loser working at an office to someone who finally finds his true element when civilization collapses is not a sympathetic victim, but a hero.

In that sense, The Walking Dead has a lot more in common with Stardew Valley than it does with Nineteen Eighty-Four. It makes a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction the diametrical opposite of dystopian fiction.

#takes #mini essay #media takes

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xiv-wolfram · 10 months

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Wolfram's Character Inspiration Chart

This took me a while because I've answered variations of this one before but forgot who I said. Honestly I consume a lot of media so… Wolf is basically 80% me with character traits thrown in from shows I like. I'm focusing more on personality/aesthetic/narrative than physical inspiration here... Ok maybe if Ravi and Eliot had a kid with Geralt's muscles and green eyes from somewhere?

Xena - Xena: Warrior Princess A person with a dark past seeks redemption by traveling around and doing good deeds. Wears lots of leather. Their primary weapon is a sword. Consistently flirting with their best friend. After writing the synopsis of his character story I realized Wolf is basically Xena… ok he looks more like Ares. Whatever, it's my bi-awakening show I can do what I want! After realizing this, I had to give Wolf some chakram lore too for the comparison to be complete! (which was easy with the Thavnairian dad)

Geralt - The Witcher Excellent fashion sense plus Wolf is also a person who tries to be neutral but will do anything to protect their loved ones. Mostly, Geralt is on here for his fighting style. Wolf uses more magic but he also has a very active/fluid way of combat. This is due to his dancer training and why he's so evasive, but I imagine it looks similar to how Geralt fights in the Blaviken scene from the first episode of season 1, just with the occasional VerFlare.

Ravi Chakrabarti - iZombie Did ya'll know Wolf is a bit of a nerd? I try and show it sometimes but due to the subject matter of many of the comics, it may not be obvious. He's really smart. Figures things out before others (like how did other people not realize Liv is a zombie?!) Unlike Ravi, he didn't have a formal education. He only knows the common language but reads a lot and even asks Y'Shtola to translate tomes for him. When he's around friends he's extremely talkative, usually about his interests (Mhachi history, cuisine, non-traditional uses for magic, etc). Also, Ravi's relationship with Peyton is (usually) really great power couple stuff. Plus they're good friends who joke around but are very sweet and flirty with each other. (Rahul Kohli is also Wolfram's voice claim btw!)

M.M. (Marvin Milk) - The Boys For some reason, I'm the only person I know who watches The Boys?! Anyway MM is great. He's got stuff from his past that really weighs on him but he fights through it for his friends and family. He's usually kind of the moral center of The Boys with a strong sense of right and wrong even if it doesn't align with those around him. He's also the paternal/fraternal figure trying to look out for everyone.

Jessica Jones - Jessica Jones She's got kind of a dark and snarky sense of humor. Leather. Alcoholic with PTSD but she doesn't let it stop her from doing what needs to be done and being a hero. Honestly I just really love characters who save people while not really knowing how to save themselves but hanging on anyway. Wolf's also got a pretty strong vigilante side…

Eliot Waugh - The Magicians Absolutely the most relatable depiction of depression I've seen on TV. He's usually really friendly and charismatic. Always joking around. It's all a mask for his major chronic depression. Drinks a lot. Also, very smart and talented mage without having to put in as much effort as Alice (read the books) which can be a double-edged sword. His biggest enemy is himself.

tagged by: @talion-graves (Thanks! This was funnnnn!!!)

tagging: This part always makes me nervous I'll forget someone. So just - anyone else who wants to do it - I wanna see it! The original template is here! I just tweaked it a bit for me.

#Character inspiration #ffxiv wol #oc wolfram #ffxiv #ffxiv oc #HunklanderBlogs #WolframGposes

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sanstropfremir · 1 year

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So what is actually y2k? Because when I look it up it gives me the y2k problem when people thought the computers were going to crash. Which made me go huh then what is the y2k aesthetic? And if possible could you give examples of groups that are doing it whether it's their own spin on it or the more traditional ish way? I delved into the y2k rabbit hole and I'm realizing it's more than low rise jeans and tank tops so I'm shook 😳

please know that i've never felt older than i have in this moment reading this for the first time slfjskkflslfjfjnfnesmmsk.

so the 'y2k aesthetic' had been a term that's evolved out of the nostalgic cycle return of fashion from the late 90s to the mid-ish 2000s. 'y2k' as a term itself means 'year two thousand' (k is shorthand for thousand) and the original y2k does indeed refer to the incoming computer crash that was thankfully avoided in 1999, but in later years has come to be used as a delineating adjective for anything surrounding that specific era.

as far as fashion goes, it's hard to give a precise definition of what was the actual 'typical y2k' fashion because there was pretty wide range of changes and a couple of different subcultures that were prominent influences. most famously and distinctively is probably scene, which is the direct ancestor of eboy/girl fashion, but also there was surfer chic (pukka shell necklaces, tribal tattoos, bleached tips, wearing board shorts to non-swim related functions), skate punk, an obsession with oversized denim and oversized clothing in general, whatever you wanna call the lisa frank aesthetic, and whatever you wanna call whatever was going on with ed hardy, like blingy tattoo chic? i dunno, i don't think anyone can explain that one. this was also the start of the heyday of the branded sportwear trend, popularized by black hiphop and rnb artists starting in the early 90s and continuing up until now, basically. the other thing that i need to stress, as someone who lived through this, is that a lot of it was UGLY. the 'y2k aesthetic' of now has taken the best and most flattering bits of it an combined them with contemporary trends to make everything look good to modern eyes, but the reality of wearing clothes in the 2000s was that shit was just ugly. there were such a messy conglomerate of trends, plus an 'ideal' body type of heroin chic (yes that was actually what it was called) meant that popular styles like lowrise jeans were miserable for anyone who was vaguely normal shaped. also extra long spaghetti strap tank tops are flattering on nobody. it was a profoundly unflattering era for everyone, and it's important to remember that no current version of it truly captures how bad it was, because if it did, it would not have been revived by all these tiktokers obsessed with 'aestheticizing' everything.

the most obvious examples in kpop are sunmi's you can't sit with us, which is quite literally a mean girls (2004) reference, but also is referential to the popularity of zombie media at the time (shawn of the dead also came out in 2004, the walking dead started airing in 2010). the highly maximalist 'bedroom' set has a bunch of 2000s tech (including the coloured imac g3, which is the computer i learned how to type on) in it and is very much on trend with how girls' bedrooms looked at the time.

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another example is jeon somi's dumb dumb, which hilariously came out at the same time, and ALSO has a mean girls reference, although this one plays more on high school media tropes than specific y2k trends, but bc i was in school in that era that tends to be an unconcious association.

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yena's smartphone also uses a lot of y2k visuals in the styling, in particular the heavy hair accessories, but it combines them with a modern slant.

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of course there's also all of newjeans content, which is very explicitly based in a medley of teen y2k aesthetics, but their most true to life styling is probably the one from their fact music awards performance, which pretty authentically hows how much of a mess the era actually was:

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aespa also uses a lot of y2k ideas in their mvs; life's too short features the same bubblegum pink teen girl bedroom idea that shows up in both sunmi and somi's mvs, very obviously is their remake of dreams come true, which is literally an s.e.s song from 1998. but also i'm going to argue that girls has the same energy as early tvxq mvs with the high contrast dramatic colour grading and incredible weird pseudo scene fashion.

for the guys there's less obvious examples, because men's fashion doesn't have as frequent trend indicators, and because pretty much ALL bg fashion is in some way traces back to y2k trends in the first place.

the clearest example is probably enhypen's blessed cursed, which quite literally references y2k (the event) IN the mv, and keeps relatively closely to the popular silhouettes of the time: oversized pants, sportswear, large jewelry, those round sunglasses. and also it uses fisheye lens shots, which were SUPER common in mvs at the time

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there's also the original kpop it boy kangta's mcountdown eyes on you stage, which is so unbelieveably late 90s that if you put the video down to 240p i would have thought it was FROM 1999. stylist whoever made this choice do you want to make out:

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it's shown up in some other places as well, including the recent sungkyu photoshoot with the very oversized denim:

and also in the recent promo photos from sm winter palace, which seems to be taking a messy vaguely winter themed stab at styling that i am thoroughly enjoying:

#basically fashion from the 2000s can be summed up as: rhinestones. plaid. denim. camouflage and fake fur #kpop questions #kpop styling #tbh there's too many examples but like billlie's ring ma bell was very avril lavigne inspired #guerrilla had a lot of skate punk influence #brand new had a bit of it also #its all over the place rn in different incarnations #nostalgia cycles happen in 20-50-70-100yr cycles. so now that we're in the 2020s we're seeing stuff come back from the 00s/70s/50s/20s #but also most 20th century western popular fashion is very interconnected so lots of trends are referential anyways #text #answers #god this made me feel so old writing up #like what do you mean that people dont know that apple bottom jeans and boots with fur were real trends

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3dnygma · 4 months

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What I read in 2023

That post about my fave 2023 movies and TV shows made me want to do a similar post about the books (and stories etc.) I've read in 2023!

I'm not usually too keen on sharing my reads because it takes me ages to finish books, which usually results in a very low amount of pages read each year... at least compared to the amount I often see others share on Social Media. But tbh, any amount is better than reading not reading at all :)

That's also why I often tend to gravitate towards novellas, short stories and anthologies.

So yup, here are all the novels, stories and non-fiction works I read in 2023.

And then I woke up by Malcolm Devlin: My girlfriend gifted me this one and I read it within a single day (which is quite rare for me) while we were on a train ride to Berlin. It's the best book I've been gifted in a while: perfect length, perfect style, intriguing subject matter, deep characters. Devlin uses tropes from Zombie shows and other post-apocalyptic media to address the much larger topic of radicalization in the 21st century and I love with how much humanity + understanding he went about this.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: This one's been going on for a while, fellas. Literally started reading it during my trip to the States in summer 2019 but due to already having seen the show, I never really felt like finishing the novel in one go. But I think that also reveals a lot about how entertaining I found the novel. It was good and I def get the hype surrounding it but the style wasn't as much to my liking as I hoped it would be.

Damals war es Friedrich by Hans Peter Richter: I read this one for work. The other German teachers at the school I worked at in 2022/23 all chose to read this one with their students so I went along with it. It's about two young boys who grow up as neighbors in Germany before and during WWII. I totally see why this one is such a popular choice in schools over here, it taught some v important lessons to my students regarding the spread of fascism and antisemitism. What I liked most about it is how the novel aimed to teach its readers about Jewish culture, traditions and successes, which I haven't seen much in other "WWII media" that is frequently dealt with in Austrian schools.

Matilda by Roald Dahl: Def my most fun read of 2023! I wanted to read another book with those same students at the end of the year (after their final exam). Out of all the books in the school's library, I went with this one because I was familiar with both movie adaptations and thought that it would allow for some really fun lesson ideas. We made bingo sheets with our predictions of the story, split up the roles whenever we read chapters in class, did grammar + spelling tasks with snippets from the book, wrote a diary entry from Mathilda's POV, and wrote an email from Miss Honey's POV. After finishing the book, we watched the older movie adaptation with Danny Devito in it. It was so much fun :')

All Tomorrows - A Billion Year Chronicle of the Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man by C. M. Kosemen: This book deals with sci-fi, body horror AND is written like a historical account - love me some epistolary, always. In short, it checks off all of my favourite boxes. It tells the story of a future in which humans start colonizing space and are punished for their hubris through various procedures of genetic engineering that are enforced on them. Multiple species that once used to be human and their habitats are documented and accompanied by fascinatingly horrifying illustrations. The free PDF can be found here and there is also an abridged retelling of the book on YouTube featuring snippets of the novel and its illustrations. I've consumed and can recommend both. This work made me discover and love the biopunk genre. If anybody has recommendations that fall under similar categories, please let me know.

four essays from It Came from the Closet: "Twenty-five contemporary queer and trans writers reflect on the horror films that shaped them and shook them." So far, I've gotten around to reading "Both Ways [Jennifer's Body]" by Carmen Maria Machado, "My Hand on the Glass [Hereditary]" by Bruce Owens Grimm, "The Wolf Man's Daughter [The Wolf Man]" by Tosha R. Taylor, and "Black Body Snatchers [Get Out]" by Samuel Autman. Out of those four, "My Hand on the Glass" and "Black Body Snatchers" stuck with me the most.

My goal for 2024 is to finish the books I've already started and to read more works by female writers.

Because my reading habits are a mess, there are several books that I've started reading a while ago and have yet to finish. These include:

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder (abt 1/5th done)

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (almost finished w that one)

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (my friends gifted me the first volume of the manga for Christmas bc the FMAB anime is one of my fave pieces of media)

#about me #book reviews #what i read #books #reading #good omens #all tomorrows #matilda #and then I woke up

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dog-uncrushed · 4 months

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think im hitting a kind of fatigue at the larping as analogue thing -- ive had a flip phone for couple months now and not sure the good its done me exactly... the most noticeable change is using my laptop more, which has become the only computer in my life. The vulgar doomscroll and media bingeing havn't gone away theyv just become less convenient and therefore more conscious processes , which also means more violent processes (the forces at work are naked). So i have come to contemplate my addiction and its withdrawals more...

one part of me wants to ride out the experiment as an exercise in discipline. yet another part of me wants to cave in: cant i have a critical consciousness of our living in a culture of image, celebrity, self-mythos, pornography and envy and so on while still participating it? The luddite phantasy is to not participate and thereby win new freedom that consists in its return to the Old. Non-participation precipitates analogue activity: the luddite is as active among his books and notebooks as the egirl is on the web. But I worry that the Luddite's phantasy is a phantasy of purity: the internet is dirty, books are clean. This sets up superegoic circuits: going online and getting dirty becomes a temptation because it is a transgression. Routines of self-flagellation and ablution that correct for transgression reinforce a dependence upon the dirty internet even though they ostensibly cut against it.

Here are the seeds of fascism. The luddite is a reactionary: reject Modernity, for it corrupts absolutes and embrace tradition which corrects and absolves absolutely. It doesn't look Reactionary for the luddite identifies Capital as the culprit of corruption: he has the same enemy as the Revolutionary. Yet Marxism insists that we cannot try to resolve the contradictions of capitalism by going against the momentum of Capital which throws the Modernist project into the future, the Communist project must reconcile itself to these contradictions and incorporate them into its social organisation and Not resist them for the sake of returning to an earlier time without contradiction: for everywhere contradiction reigns. A logic of purity, like the one envinced by the superego is one that seeks to eliminate contradiction. But in practice it exploits contradiction instead of eliminating it: the idea of purity promises salvation while always delivering denigration. The more one tries to be pure the more one finds oneself impure. The fascist leader and the superego are one in setting up impossible ideals of salvation which function to demarcate lines of purity and impurity, of 'us' and 'them'. The luddite fancies himself a puritan isolate, separated by 8"inches of gorilla glass from the great zoo of the terminally online "They".

I still think social media is a scourge on this earth, I just don't know if its a scourge that one has to quarantine from. It comes down to this: we're all attention-whores today whose personalities start to freeze and crumble without warm and steady streams of recognition. Turning off the taps of recognition leads to the zombie like withdrawal state of total passivity that scrolls to court the abyss.

Against the abyss I toast to activity: Here's for activity! I drink to the text post

#my own

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smut-wars-exchange · 1 year

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Hi, I notice this event allows any fanwork that complies with ao3's rules, however, only fic and art are listed in the nomination tag set. Will other kinds of work mediums be added?

Masterpost | Rules | FAQ | Ask | Discord

Hello,

It depends what you mean with other work media. Art includes any fanwork that is primarily not writing. Digital and/or traditional drawing and painting are included in 'art', as well as other art forms, such as podfic, fanmixes, gifsets, digital edits, fanvids... Any fanwork that complies with AO3 rules is allowed.

AO3 has a couple of examples in their TOS FAQ 🔗:

What kinds of fanworks can I post? You can post any noncommercial, non-ephemeral fanwork. Here are some examples of allowed content: 1. An audio performance of a fannish essay about vampire biology across sources, or the same essay in text form. 2. Short clips of footage from existing sources, edited over a song to make an argument or tell a story. 3. A comic telling the romantic adventures of the protagonist of a video game. 4. Photographs of a knitted character. 5. An alternative version of a Jane Austen novel in which there's a zombie apocalypse. 6. The supporting text for an original adventure for a tabletop roleplaying game.

Examples #5 and #6 fall under 'fic', and the rest of this list would be considered 'art'.

#*asks #*mod c #*mod t

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concerningwolves · 2 years

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I’ve been catching up with The Walking Dead and just watched season 11,episode 6 where the majority of the story is told from Connie’s POV, a deaf woman. I found it really interesting and know that the actress(who is deaf in real life)had a lot of input on how her character was portrayed. Not sure if you watch or have ever watched but if you have, what did you think? Not just about the representation but also the apocalypse setting? I’ve been trying to write an apocalypse but sometimes feel like the whole zombie thing is overdone now.

Excuse me coming to this months after you asked, but! I finally watched it! I started binging the Walking Dead, oh ... four years ago? Three? Idk. I enjoyed it, but somewhere around the prison arc, I just started to lose interest a bit and stopped watching.

But anyway, to address your question: once I recovered from the severe mental whiplash of Carol having long hair and Daryl still being alive, I definitely liked Connie's little bit of story in that episode. I'm always pleased when TV shows depict d/Deaf POVs by muffling or entirely muting sound, so that viewers have to step right into that character's shoes. It's like in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, issue #19, where dialogue boxes were blank and there were sign language panels in place of traditional dialogue. (Granted I haven't gotten past volume three of the Fraction Hawkeyes so I'm yet to read that issue myself, but everything I've seen of it makes me go 😍). It's always very *chef's kiss* to me.

Knowing that Connie's actress is deaf and had input is also nice. Obviously I was only watching that episode in isolation so I can't comment on the show's representation overall, but I did enjoy it. If you want to know more about what other d/Deaf people thought, see if you can find reviews from non-verbal sign-speaking d/Deaf folks specifically, since they've even more skin in the conversation than I do.

As for zombies being overdone ... I mean, yeah, they are. But I also think that's actually part of the charm of the genre (if one can use "charm" in relation to zombies). Zombie apocalypse is very much a "holy shit, two cakes!" kind of genre, in that its core themes – end of the world because of undead and/or infected people, humanity striving to keep existing – are very replicable. They're easy to repeat across different stories, so you generally know exactly what you're in for when you sit down to engage with zombie media. For some people, the appeal is in the deep humanity that you find in most zombie media; for others, it's the violence; or maybe it's the criticisms of human nature. Whatever the case, there's always an audience for it.

Pieces of zombie media that stand out don't have to be hugely unique, either. The Last of Us (video game), The Girl With All the Gifts (book by M. R. Carey) and Train to Busan (film) all share similar core themes. Across all three, the theme is "caretaker(s) and child traversing a hostile world", and a lot of their popularity comes from the tenderness, tragedy and very human nature of the stories. These things resonate with people, so they'll happily engage with media that is similar purely to get more of those sweet, sweet Feels™.

(Putting the rest of this under a read more, because there are spoilers ahead for the endings of The Last of Us videogame and the book The Girl With All the Gifts.)

With TLoU and Gifts specifically, the shared theme is "people travelling with a child who is somehow immune to the virus, who promises to be humankind's salvation". It isn't the zombies in TLoU and Gifts that are particularly unique – they both use the idea that the cordyceps fungus has evolved to infect humans. It's the plots, and the way these plots are resolved, that makes them stand out. In Gifts, the characters realise that the world can't return to the way it was, so they change it in an alarming and irrevocable way to allow the world to evolve. In TLoU, it's Joel's decision to save Ellie (a tangible goal based off of very human desires) instead of sacrificing Ellie for the intangible concept of saving the world.

There are still zombie medias that take the basic concept and sprint off into the unknown though. Take the TV show iZombie (based off a comic, iirc), which is utterly balls to the walls and flips a lot of genre standards upside-down. Instead of being mindless, the zombies are ordinary people who can live human lives, assuming they get enough brains. (Oh, and they take on key personality traits from the brains they eat, as well as getting visions from the person's life. It's wild). Instead of a massive cataclysmic apocalypse, it's a slow descent as the zombies try to live normal lives, while yet other zombies see their new state of living as a way to make money, thereby threatening to expose the rest of their kind.

On the more serious, genre-typical horror end of the spectrum is Stephen King's Cell, in which the "zombie" outbreak is actually caused by a type of technological virus spread through mobile phones, playing on common fears of technological warfare that were on the rise at the time of publication. The infected gain psionic powers, and there's also some sort of "hive mind" thing going on with the infected, which lends itself to the main plot. (It's been years since I read it so I can't recall details). Basically, King uses the infected as an active antagonist, rather than the more passive, environmental antagonist as is common in most other examples of the genre, i.e., The Walking Dead.

I could truly write an entire essay on zombie apocalypse stuff (... more so than I have here already. Oops), but the TL;DR of this post is: there is always an audience for the basic, "overdone" zombie apocalypse fiction and there are still ways to make it unique. The genre still has a lot to give IMO, and this is a hill that I will, if not die on, at least stand on top of while loudly making my opinions and feelings known.

#post apocalypse #zombies #deaf characters #the walking dead #deaf representation #hawkeye #disabilities in SFF

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zannolin · 1 year

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This is a free pass to brain dump about anything, good for one time but can be recieved multiple times

i've had this in my inbox since july of 2021 saving it for a rainy day and you know what i feel like brain dumping. i am putting this under a read more bc nobody needs to see me talk this much this incomprehensibly.

isn't it interesting how suspension of disbelief functions different for different mediums? like okay i'm specifically thinking about in video games vs everything else (but by everything else i'm generally thinking books, television, movies, etc; what we think of as traditional storytelling methods). in video games the story inherently functions differently than it does in, say, a novel because you are playing through the story, participating in it, rather than simply consuming. you are the player.

like to guide you through a game and give you information, the game usually has to drop you hints that normally could occur in different ways in different media. for example, all the notes left around the baker house in resident evil 7. in a non-video game setting, it's far more likely these characters would just talk to each other to say "hey i hid the dog head medallions because people kept getting out of the house." but because it's a video game and you actively need to find those dog heads, it has a note left for you to find to guide you through it, and usually you go oh great, i know what to do now, unless you're me and you're going "why would they leave a note instead of just talking...they LIVE together" and thus ending up on this tangent. because it's necessary for the game to progress you're more willing to accept it and move on rather than go huh that's AWFUL convenient...generally speaking anyway.

or how healing works. what's super brilliant to me about the winters duology is how they get you to accept the healing mechanics in 7 (and if you play the route that involves ethan losing a leg and reattaching it with med fluid, it sets a precedent for his wild hand reattachment in village) as normal because, well, it's a video game, i'm supposed to take damage and be able to heal from it because if i just died when a regular guy died...the game would be over real fast. as we see from the ethan must die dlc tbh. but then they take it to another kind of absurd level in village, with ethan falling multiple stories and being fine, reattaching his hand and being fine, etc, and you're like...well it IS a video game this is kinda weird but i'll accept it and laugh a little for now? and then they use the suspension of disbelief to turn everything on its head because SIKE none of this has ever been normal! you FOOLS! brilliant really.

(BUT again: it makes sense you'd be willing to stretch your suspension of disbelief because again, you HAVE to heal in games where you take damage or it could potentially become unplayable for a lot of people. for example, in the resident evil 2 remake, your player character can heal from being bitten by zombies including having their neck fucking chomped when by the laws of the universe, a bite should be enough for the t-virus to spread and infect the host. it can't be cured by simple herbs or med spray, but hey, it's gotta be a playable video game with stakes! so there's this interesting grey area of how much you're willing to allow the laws of the universe to bend for you to play the game.)

anyway what's got me thinking about this is i've been working on writing a resident evil: village au where the roles are flipped (the elusive final girl au where mia is the protag, for those of you who are actually still reading this. hi.) and it's made me realize what makes a good video game plot will not actually make a good novel/fanfic plot, not without a lot of adaptation. this is because again fundamentally video games are operating on the premise of you participating and wanting to do the things like solving puzzles and finding clues and fighting bosses, which is not the same as when you're reading about those things. sure you can read about them, but you're not going to want to read a 1:1 translation where it's like, "ethan took the mannequin's arm off at the elbow. inside, there was a medallion of some sort, displaying three closed eyes. he went to the door at the end of the hall and changed the medallion on the locked door until it matched." etc. etc. video games keep you entertained by having YOU do the exploring and the solving but it's much more boring to just read that straight up, so you have to do a lot more work to make it engaging AND to account for the differences in suspension of disbelief which is where we get back to what i was originally talking about.

because like. in a video game. because i am playing it and need to keep living to PLAY the GAME, i am again, much more willing to see my player character slammed into a wall and yeeted down some stairs etc. but when i see that same thing happen in a movie or a show or read it and there's no explanation, i go ???? my little brother and i have a yearly tradition of watching home alone 2 and debating how many times, by rights, the wet bandits should have died from kevin's antics. it's a heated debate every year, between "he would have to be seriously hospitalized for this" and "no he's fucking dead right now." we're willing to laugh at it because it's a comedy, but we are very very aware that it's incredibly unrealistic and if it were being played as anything BUT comedy and slapstick (which resident evil fics and a lot of action movies/media generally are Not) it would be incredibly difficult to accept because you can't take it seriously. it's fine for comedy because, well, you aren't supposed to. bugs bunny and all that.

so when i am adapting a video game into a different medium, especially if i am writing a character who is not intended to take the same level of beating as ethan winters or if i am writing about actual game events, i have to do a lot more work to make it readable and functional as a written story that takes into account the fact that game mechanics aren't going to work the same in a written form as they will in the video game form, because you're consuming those two types of media in fundamentally different ways.

and i think it's fucking fascinating.

#answered asks #anonymous #long post #resident evil

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gamification-history · 2 months

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GAMIFICATION HISTORY

The concept of gamification, embedding game design elements in non-game contexts to enhance user engagement, motivation, and loyalty, has a rich and diverse history that spans across various fields and industries. From its roots in loyalty programs to its proliferation in the digital age, gamification has evolved into a sophisticated tool used by businesses, educators, and organizations worldwide to create engaging, motivating, and enjoyable experiences.

The origins of gamification can be traced back to loyalty programs, such as frequent flyer programs, which airlines introduced in the late 20th century. These programs utilized points, levels, and rewards to incentivize customer loyalty, employing basic game mechanics to transform mundane transactions into more engaging experiences. This early form of gamification demonstrated the potential of using game elements to influence real-world behavior, laying the groundwork for the more complex gamification strategies we see today.

As digital technology advanced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so did the opportunities for gamification. Video games became increasingly popular, leading to a broader understanding and appreciation of game design principles. Businesses and developers began to see the potential of applying these principles beyond entertainment, recognizing that the elements that make games engaging—such as progress tracking, achievement systems, and competition—could be applied to non-game environments to encourage desired behaviors.

One of the pivotal moments in the history of gamification was the emergence of social media platforms and smartphone apps, which provided the perfect ecosystem for gamified experiences to flourish. Foursquare, launched in 2009, was one of the first apps to successfully use gamification to encourage real-world actions, rewarding users with badges for checking into different locations. This demonstrated the power of gamification to drive engagement and build communities around non-game activities.

In the educational sector, gamification began to gain traction as a means to enhance learning by making it more engaging and interactive. Educational software and platforms started incorporating game elements like points, leaderboards, and badges to motivate students and track progress. The success of these applications highlighted gamification's potential to transform traditional learning environments, making education more enjoyable and effective for students of all ages.

The gamification of fitness and health is another significant development, with platforms like Fitbit and apps like Zombies, Run! using game mechanics to encourage physical activity. These applications combine real-world exercise with virtual rewards and narratives, demonstrating how gamification can be used to promote healthier lifestyles.

Today, gamification is a multi-faceted field that intersects with behavioral economics, psychology, and design, offering a rich toolkit for designing experiences that motivate and engage. Its applications range from marketing and customer engagement to employee productivity, education, and personal development. As technology continues to evolve, so too will the ways in which we can apply gamification principles, promising a future where engaging, game-like experiences are woven into the fabric of everyday life.

To visualize the evolution of gamification, let's create an image that encapsulates its journey from simple loyalty programs to its widespread application across various domains today.

The image will showcase the progression from early loyalty cards and simple point systems to sophisticated digital badges, leaderboards, and interactive learning environments, highlighting the transformative impact of gamification across industries and activities.

The visual timeline effectively captures the transformative journey of gamification, from its humble beginnings with loyalty programs to its current status as a pervasive force in digital engagement and beyond. This evolution highlights the innovative application of game mechanics in diverse contexts, demonstrating how gamification has grown from simple reward systems to complex, engaging experiences that touch many aspects of daily life.

As gamification continues to evolve, its impact on education, health, business, and leisure suggests a future where the boundaries between game and life blur, creating opportunities for learning, improvement, and engagement that were previously unimagined. This illustration serves as a vibrant testament to the power of gamification to motivate, engage, and bring joy to various activities, ensuring its place in the development of future technologies and methodologies.

#gamification #game art #gaming

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litgenchronicles · 3 months

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Graphic Novels: A Genre for the Visual Storyteller.

What are Graphic Novels?

Graphic novels are books that tell stories through a combination of text and illustrations, usually arranged in panels and pages that resemble comic strips. Graphic novels are not necessarily novels in the traditional sense, as they can also include non-fiction, anthologies, or collections of short stories. Graphic novels are also not a subgenre of comics, although they share some similarities and history. Rather, graphic novels are a format that can encompass any genre, style, or theme.

How did Graphic Novels emerge and evolve?

Graphic novels are a relatively new term that emerged in the late 20th century and gained popularity in the 21st century. Some of the precursors of graphic novels include European albums, which are hardcover books that contain original or serialized comic stories, such as The Adventures of Tintin or The Ballad of the Salty Sea1; and American underground comix, which are self-published or independent comic books that explore adult or controversial topics, such as A Contract with God or La rivolta dei racchi1. Graphic novels were influenced by the development of the graphic novel market, which allowed creators to produce and distribute longer and more diverse works, and the graphic novel canon, which recognized and celebrated the artistic and literary merits of graphic novels, such as Maus, The Dark Knight Returns, or Watchmen23.

What are the characteristics and themes of Graphic Novels?

Graphic novels are characterized by their use of visual and verbal elements, such as images, words, colors, fonts, layouts, and transitions. Graphic novels often exploit the possibilities and limitations of the medium, such as breaking the fourth wall, playing with time and space, or using symbolism and metaphor. Graphic novels also allow the reader to participate in the creation and interpretation of the story, as they have to fill in the gaps between panels and pages, and decode the meaning of the images and words. Graphic novels also challenge the notions of authorship, authority, and authenticity, as the story can be influenced by the collaboration, adaptation, or appropriation of multiple agents.

Some of the common themes of graphic novels are:

The relationship between language and reality.

The impact of history and culture on identity and society.

The exploration of new forms of expression and communication.

The critique of the conventions and expectations of the medium.

The celebration of creativity and innovation.

What are some notable examples of Graphic Novels?

There are many examples of graphic novels that have been bestsellers, critically acclaimed, or adapted into other media. Here are some of them:

Persepolis (2000) by Marjane Satrapi: A memoir that depicts the author’s childhood and adolescence in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution. It was made into an animated film in 2007.

Fun Home (2006) by Alison Bechdel: A memoir that explores the author’s relationship with her father, a closeted gay man and a funeral home director, and her own sexuality. It was adapted into a musical in 2013.

The Walking Dead (2003–present) by Robert Kirkman and various artists: A horror series that follows a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies. It was turned into a TV series in 2010.

Saga (2012–present) by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples: A science fiction and fantasy series that tells the story of a couple from warring alien races and their daughter, who are pursued by various factions across the galaxy. It has won multiple awards, including the Hugo Award and the Eisner Award.

American Born Chinese (2006) by Gene Luen Yang: A graphic novel that interweaves three stories: one about a Chinese American boy who struggles with his identity and culture, one about a Chinese folk hero who wants to be a god, and one about a racist caricature of a Chinese immigrant. It was the first graphic novel to be nominated for the National Book Award.

Conclusion.

Graphic novels are a genre that reflects the realities and potentials of the visual age. They offer new ways of experiencing and creating stories, as well as new perspectives on the role and function of literature in the contemporary world. Graphic novels are not a trivial or superficial genre, but a valid and valuable form of literature that deserves attention and appreciation.

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swampy-sayin-it · 9 months

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The Trans-Mutation Stations

But these people, like irrational animals born by nature for capture and destruction, revile things that they do not understand, and in their destruction they will also be destroyed, suffering wrong as payment for wrongdoing. Thinking daytime revelry a delight, they are stains and defilements as they revel in their deceits while carousing with you. Their eyes are full of adultery and insatiable for sin. They seduce unstable people, and their hearts are trained in greed. Accursed children! 2 Peter 2:12-14

The time is at hand as we are witnessing the rise of the trans-mutation of humans into something totally ungodly before our eyes. We have been getting gaslighted for years now to get the world ready for the rise of the unhuman army. Many of us have sat back and allowed this to happen and not thinking much of it until it is slapping our faces and mocking our faith. What are the ways of this is happening to us and mainly the children of all ages.

The Media Prepares The Mind The media has been salting the mind for ways that the one world government will be transforming human behavior from one of normal traditional values and customs into one of the abnormal. Non-stop movies and TV shows about Zombies or Walking Dead in positive lights as to promote cannibalism. Movies about hunting fellow humans for sport and food sources giving a sheen of acceptability for young adults to make it "cool". Vampire movies to incubate the mind where it is romantic for a blood sucker from the dead and a normal human to enjoy a relationship.

Am I getting through yet? The KJV version of the Bible calls these undead and other likeminded characters "brute beasts". In other words, unnatural, uncaring and unhuman.

The World Economic Forum This ungodly outfit is working its way through pandemics, vaccines and food shortages to transform people into bug eating zombies. Unleashing a flu, calling it a pandemic, concocting experimental vaccines (along with multiple boosters), masking, and forced confinements all to warp the mind into involuntary servitude and slavery, like and army of Renfields.

Food shortages designed to manipulate the population to start eating bugs for proteins instead of meat because meat will eventually become scarce through fear and decree. All this added to trans-mutate a world population into unwilling dupes to rise up against the people of the faith.

The Gender Bender Hoax It is now in our faces, the gender identity hoax. While there is a smattering of the population that truly do have gender dysphoria, that accounts for less than 1%. The rest takes place in Trans Mutation Stations we call public schools.

It is completely normal for girls to enjoy playing sports and boys to get into home economics. Generally, after puberty the girls get into more female things and the boys find their way to male oriented things. Telling little Suzy that she is in the wrong body because she likes sports at age 8 is a nasty lie told by people that have no business being near children, let alone teaching them.

The whole purpose is to transform the children into eunuchs, many who wish they never agreed to being carved up like a turkey on Thanksgiving. The dirty secret is that many that started down the road to reassignment surgeries begin to regret and turn back. Some that have gone through the whole chance realize this is ot the euphoria they hoped it would and some commit suicide. Where are those teachers, doctors and surgeons for the families of those they ruined?

What To Do As the late James Brown sang, "get up get into it and get involved". I say those are great words to go by here. If your kids are not at stake there is a family that needs help with theirs. First pray! Second, find your groove here and make a stand. Third, get the community involved. If you can start your own food garden and buy a freezer (without the gadgets). If you can invest in a side of beef, pork, etc. and fill that freezer. It is time to learn a simpler lifestyle and become more self-sufficient. If you have already taken the jab, do not do it again. Remember this is a flu and yes you can get very sick but the vast majority recover in a matter of days. Start a vitamin D and Zinc daily regimen.

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning because the new beginning is near. Be ready.

#christianity #church

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mhysa-leesi · 3 years

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му вℓσσ∂у ναℓєηтιηє

{Gif Source} {Gif Source 2}

Pairing: Dark!Steve Rogers 𝒳 (femme) Reader 🩸.

Summary: "Steve Rogers is madly in love with you and he'll do anything for you to see that--no matter who gets in his way."

Word Count: 4,765 (Sorry, this is a long one!)

TW‼: Non-Con, Smut, Stalking, Yandere Themes, Murder (Description of Side-Character Death), Blood, Description of Gore, and Strong Language. 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI‼

AN: This story contains adult and dark themes, please do not proceed if you are under the age of 18 or if ANY of these warnings upset you! I am not responsible for your media consumption–you and only you are. Also, I used one of the prompts from (@the-modern-typewriter) to describe a character's death, ALL CREDIT GOES TO THEM. 𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊.

AN Cont.: If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual violence, please reach out for help. I do not condone ANY of the actions described in this story, this is merely a work of FICTION.

The first love letter was delivered on a gloomy Friday afternoon. The clouds above the city were dark and full of frigid torrents of rainfall. Gold and scarlet autumn leaves whispered against the chilly winds as acorns scattered about; rolling and cracking underfoot as you made your everyday walk to work. You had chosen to stray from your usual route that day, deciding on a new corner coffee shop instead of your normal stop.

You remembered that day clearly, as if it had happened just yesterday. The new coffee shop was a small, hole in the wall with plastic vines of ivy and fairylights rimming the framework of the inside. You ordered rich and dark coffees, with creamy oat milk for you and your coworkers, and an apple pecan oatmeal cookie for yourself.

Your workday was seemingly the same as any other. Pam was gossiping with Susan, and Scott was hiding from Mark, your manager, in the breakroom. You remember you were seated at your cubicle when things turned, staring at the rain against the window, and tapping your pen against your notepad, when you were startled by the mail carrier. He handed you a single, pink envelope with a heart stamp on its flap and left with a mumbled “you’re welcome”. You frowned as there was no return address or other name besides yours. You had opened it anyway.

You remembered how your frown had deepened as your stomach dropped. The paper trembled in your hands as you stared at the small heart sketched at the bottom. You frantically looked around the office for any sign of a joke, hoping to see one of your coworkers giggling at your shocked reaction. But everyone had their noses deep into their screens, typing away at their work. You turned the letter over, looking for a name or a clue as to who had sent it. But it was blank.

And you remembered how you had crumpled up the letter and tossed it as you refocused and finished the rest of that workday.

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Weeks passed before you got another mysterious love letter delivered to your desk, a small bouquet of roses and baby’s-breath with it. And again, you crumpled it up and threw it away; leaving the flowers in the breakroom. You had made a mental note that day to talk to the mailman about the delivery of these letters.

For a time they stopped and you thought you were out of the woods or thought your secret admirer had lost interest at the very least. But you were wrong. Your third envelope had been waiting for you in your mailbox when you had gotten home from work one Monday evening. You didn’t bother opening it as you sent it straight to the garbage.

You were growing paranoid and antsy as you constantly looked over your shoulder. You’d freeze every time you came across an envelope, even if it was just your monthly rent notice or bank statement. You had refused to live like this, in a constant state of anxiety and fear, so, that’s how you found yourself moving into a new apartment across town.

You were met with months of peace, you were finally readjusting to life before the letters. You had even moved in with someone you had been seeing from your new job, Chris. He was perfect, someone straight from a romance novel; tall, dark, and handsome, with a taste for adventure and romance. You were happy with him--you were in love and had long since decided that if Chris were to ask you to marry him, you’d say yes in a heartbeat.

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Today was your anniversary with Chris, and the two of you had an entire evening planned. Dinner at your favorite restaurant, a surprise showing of your favorite movie at the corner cinema, and then home, where you’d give him his gift. A red lacy lingerie set with fuzzy handcuffs, and a silk blindfold to match.

Your heart skipped and your stomach alighted with butterflies as you touched up your makeup in the bathroom mirror. The evening had been absolutely perfect and it was about to get even better. You stepped out into the bedroom, dressed in nothing but red lace and a bathrobe. A spritz of perfume here and a mint there, and you were ready to go surprise your man.

You walked out into the living room and seductively leaned against the wall, watching as he poured two glasses of red wine. He turned and froze, swallowing hard as he abandoned the drinks on the kitchen counter. You smirked as he pulled you to him by your hips, instantly locking his lips to yours. He looked down at you through his eyelashes, his deep brown eyes darkened with lust, and you couldn’t help but bite your lip. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down to your lips once more.

Your eyes closed and moaned as he peppered kisses along the curve of your neck, tilting your head back to give him better access. His hands roamed your body hotly, squeezing and caressing your dips and curves. Chris entangled his hands in your hair as he moved you to the counter, lifting you up as if you weighed nothing. He pushed your robe down your shoulders to reveal the red lace hidden underneath, and with a groan, he bent to trace the rosette lacework that covered your breasts with his tongue. You hummed and wrapped your legs around his waist, your hands running down his back to toy with the bottom hem.

Chris gently pushed you down to an angle as he kissed down your body, stopping just below your navel to wink up at you. You bit back a laugh as you wiggled your hips impatiently as you leaned back on your hands. With your fingers splayed against the wooden countertop, your touch met something smooth and waxy--like the waxy seal of an envelope. You reached behind you and grabbed a pink envelope, with a wax stamp of a heart on its flap. Your heart seemed to stop as you stared at the envelope in your hands.

You vaguely felt Chris’s lips on your inner thighs, kissing and nipping at your skin. When he heard no reaction from you, he looked up, his brows furrowed and eyes full of questions.

“What’s that?” he asked, “You wrote me a love letter, too?” he winked as he reached for it.

You jerked it away from his grasp, your heart hammering in your chest as you ripped open the flap; ripping the waxy heart in half.

P.S. You should really lock your windows, doll. You jumped off the counter and ran to the windows, each one was locked--except for one. You locked it and double-checked its strength, fighting against the lock as you tried to open it.

“Babe? (Y/N),” Chris said sternly, snapping you out of your trance.

You looked at him now. You didn’t know what to say, you couldn’t think of how to form the words. You wanted to say everything was fine and okay, but it wasn’t--it was far from it. Whoever had been writing and sending you these knew where you lived now, and that scared you. After months of trying so hard to move on from this, you felt as if you were right back at square one again.

The rest of the night was unclear to you. You moved like a zombie, your brain on autopilot as you crawled into bed to hide under the covers until the morning sun rose. Chris asked questions, of course. But you had no answers for him. You had no idea who had been writing them and had absolutely no clue how they had found you again.

Chris had suggested going to the police, but what could they do? No one had physically harassed you, and although creepy, the letters weren’t threatening. And not to mention, you had thrown away most of your evidence. You were at a loss. Chris was supportive, always there to comfort you during the night when you were restless, but that never kept you from feeling alone.

Your paranoia increased tenfold by the end of that week. You changed your daily routine every few days, hoping that’d throw your stalker off your trail, but it never did. They always seemed ten steps ahead of you, whereas you struggled to even think to keep up with them. Your breaking point was reached on Sunday evening as you met with one of your old friends from high school for breakfast-dinner--an old tradition you two had decided to revive for the night.

Things were going good, and you even dared to forget about your own issues as you cut into your syrup-soaked pancakes. Madison was telling you about her newest fling and how good he was in the sack, and you genuinely found yourself happy to listen to the vulgar details. After painting you a vivid picture of her sex life, Madison excused herself to the restroom; leaving you alone with your pancakes and empty cup of iced coffee.

You saw a head of electric blue hair and you perked up. Your waitress came with a smile and handed you a paper cup of steaming coffee and a single napkin.

“Oh, I didn’t order this,” you said with a polite smile.

“A gentleman ordered this for you,” she winked before walking away.

You frowned as you looked at the writing on the napkin. Refusing to even acknowledge the cup of coffee in front of you.

Your mouth went dry as you stared at the familiar handwriting. Brown dress, he knew what you were wearing--he was here. You shot to your feet, the chair scraping loudly against the floor, as you looked around frantically, ignoring all of the judgemental looks and hushed whispers you were getting.

“You okay, (Y/N)?” asked Madison, her brows knitted in concern.

“Yeah,” you lied, “I just… I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you later, Mads.”

You dug through your wallet and gave a twenty to your waitress on your way out, only stopping to yell over your shoulder for her to keep the change. You practically ran home from the restaurant as your anxiety started to settle in your bones, making you heavy with unease. You called Chris, but were only met with his voicemail. The elevator ride up to your floor was tortuous as you watched the floor numbers slowly light up one by one until finally, they stopped at your floor. You panted as you slammed the door shut behind you, sliding the lock and chain in place as you dropped your head to rest against the wooden frame.

You sniffled as the words from his letter were seared into your eyelids. You just wanted him to leave you alone, you didn’t know what you did to catch his eye, and worst of all, you didn’t know how to make it stop. You choked on your hiccupped breaths as tears streaked down your cheeks. When you finally calmed down you switched on the lights and finally turned around…

You stared at Chris in horror. Blood drenched the entire living room, his corpse sat limp in a chair like a broken, bloody doll. His throat and wrists had been slashed. You tried to hold your hand over the open wounds as you screamed for help, but no matter the pressure you applied, the blood still gushed and seeped through your fingers, oozing down your arm, and dripping from your elbow. The gore of it all brought waves of nausea that went beyond physical retching, the sickness you felt was indescribable. But the smell, the smell was something much worse. Metallic, iron, copper… Your ears started to ring. You couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe. You could only stare at the bloodstain on your hands and scream.

You left that following weekend, abandoning the big city to move back in with your parents and younger sister. You spent most of your days locked in your room, hiding from the world under the comfort of your blanket and drawn curtains. Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months. You’d look at yourself in the mirror and cry as you no longer recognized yourself as the woman you once were. You knew it was time to move on, but you couldn’t, not when you’d see Chris’s bloodied body every time you’d close your eyes.

You started small by taking baby steps toward your recovery. It started with family meals, then a cashier job at your local supermarket, shopping trips with your mother and sister. Then you eventually graduated to therapy, where you’d stare at a forest green ceiling as you reclined on the chaise longue. Therapy helped and it was admittedly one of the better moments of your monotonous days, you felt heard, seen, as you walked through your own thoughts and nightmares. Your appointments even inspired you to reach out to Chris’s parents for closure, to go with them to visit their son’s grave. It was bittersweet, leaving behind a bouquet of roses for the man you had loved so deeply instead of a kiss goodbye; but it was something you knew you’d have to come to terms with. It wasn’t your fault, that was the mantra you’d tell yourself when you’d catch glimpses of his blood on your hands.

Before you knew it a year had passed since the incident, and in that year, you had not received one letter. You had made a resolution for the first time that New Year’s Eve as you waited for the midnight ball to drop. You told yourself you’d forget, to start fresh, and become an even better version of yourself. You were a flower that was fighting against all odds to blossom.

You cut your hair, got bangs and highlights. Saved up for a brand new, off-the-lot car. And moved into a cozy apartment with your sister. Things were looking up for you and you truly believed that you had finally found your way out of the woods. But life had a habit of playing cruel tricks on those who were naive enough to believe such a thing.

It was mid-February, just a few days before Valentine’s Day, when things started to go to shit. You had just come back from the gym with your sister when you saw it. A pink envelope with no return address or any other name besides yours, with a wax seal in the shape of a heart on the back flap, sat on your pillow. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as you held it in your hands. You debated on throwing it away, on pretending you never received it. But you wanted to know what more this twisted bastard could have to say. You ripped it open and read.

You didn’t hesitate as you ripped the letter to shreds, throwing the pieces into the garbage with an angry grunt. Delusional piece of deranged shit, you thought. You raked through your brain for the millionth time since your first letter, trying to figure out who the fuck could possibly be the sender, but you came to the same conclusion you had been coming to for years--nothing. It was agonizing, not knowing who your torturer was. It was your shadow, how could you not know who was living in it? But, no matter how hard you thought, you kept drawing blank after blank.

Your sister comforted you with a glass of wine and dumplings from the takeout place up the street. She was going out tonight, but offered to stay home with you instead.

“No,” you shooed, “I’ll be fine, I’m a big girl.”

“You sure?” she frowned, “It’s no big deal, Girls Night is every Friday night, I can always go next week.”

“I’m fine. Go and have fun for the both of us,” you said as you waved her away.

She left a few minutes later, dressed in heels and a short skirt. You ate the rest of the dumplings and finished the bottle of wine before calling it a night. You undressed down to your underwear and threw on an oversized t-shirt and plopped down onto the bed with an unceremonious bounce. The wine coursing through your system made it easier than usual to fall asleep, and the next thing you knew, you were in a deep sleep, dreaming of a life with Chris--of a life without the letters. It was one of those good dreams you wished you’d never wake from.

Which was why you were so annoyed when a loud noise startled you awake. You looked at your phone and the time read “1:00 AM”, you frowned, it was too early for your sister to be back already. You padded along the hallway, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you called out for her, worried she might’ve passed out drunk on the floor or something. You stopped as you reached the front room--the very empty front room. Your heart started to pound as you stood frozen, staring at the empty room before you. A shuffling from behind caught your attention, then. And against your better instincts, you turned around slowly to see a shadowed silhouette of a man standing at the end of the hallway.

You stood there for what felt like an eternity, just staring dumbstruck at the man. With every step he took toward you, you took one back. Inching closer and closer to the front door with every backward step.

“Doll, don’t,” he warned, his voice striking you with fear like a bolt of lightning.

Without a second thought, you ran toward the door, fumbling stupidly with the locks in your panicked state of mind. The man was on you in a flash, easily dragging you away from your pathetic attempt at escape. His arms slithered around you like snakes, their hold constricting as he locked an arm firmly around your neck, silencing your screams as you struggled to breathe. You slapped and clawed at his forearm as he pulled you back to your bedroom.

“Please be a good girl for me, (Y/N). I don’t want to hurt you, baby,” he said against your hair.

With his arm still wrapped around your neck, he threw you down onto the bed, quickly straddling you before you could scramble to your feet. He pinned your arms above your head with one hand and forced you to look at him with the other. His face was illuminated by the moonlight. The silver shine highlighting his familiar eyes through the holes of his helmet. You froze as he pulled off his blue cowl.

You were beyond confused, to say the least. You stared up at Captain America, your brain working overtime to try and put the puzzle pieces together. What was Captain America doing in your apartment? And why had he called you “baby”? What the fuck was going on? Were you lucid dreaming? You must’ve looked as confused as you felt because he smiled down at you, gently promising you answers to the questions that you hadn’t yet asked.

“You’re even more beautiful up-close, doll,” he said as he brushed away hairs that fell in your face from your struggle.

Your eyes widened. Doll. The nickname sent chills down your spine as the word flashed against the pink color of the envelopes, against the red of spilled blood.

“You…”

He ran a finger down your cheek and nodded, “Me.”

You paled under him, your bottom lip trembling as you shook your head in disbelief. He frowned and hushed you, caressing your cheek and wiping away the tears that fell.

“Shh… Don’t cry, baby,” he cooed, “I’ll take good care of you, you don’t need to cry.”

“W–Why?” you hiccupped through your sobs, “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you, (Y/N),” your stomach dropped as he answered you as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

You shook your head, “No. No! You’re Captain America. You’re supposed to be a hero!”

You fought against his grip, flailing and kicking wildly as you tried in vain to get away from him. You trashed against him, kicking against his thighs with all of your strength, but it was nothing to him--nothing but an annoying inconvenience.

“Stop,” he said, his jaw ticking with simmering anger.

But you refused to stop. You whined and fought against him.

“Stop,” he repeated, his anger coming to a rolling boil.

You shot up and headbutted him. He reeled back and glowered down at you, his jaw clenched and nostrils flared.

“I said stop,” he shouted as he finally stilled you with a sharp slap.

The sound was as sharp as the feel of it. You sobbed as the pain stung your skin, the right side of your face becoming numb from the harsh impact of it.

“Why are you doing this, Steve?” you asked again.

“Because I love you,” he answered again, “I know you love me, too, (Y/N).”

“No,” you exclaimed, “I don’t love you! I don’t love you! I don’t love you!” you sobbed.

“You will,” Something seemed to change within his eyes. No longer were there hints of green in his blue eyes, but something much darker… Something more sinister. You swallowed as you shrunk under his intense glare.

You exclaimed as he forced his lips against yours. Squeezing your jaw until he could slip his tongue into your mouth. You pushed against him, beating on his shoulders as he shoved his tongue further down your throat. He pulled away, breathless and flushed, a ghost of a content smile on his face. You gasped and tried to wiggle away once more, rolling onto your stomach as you did so. A yelp escapes you as you feel him grab your hips, pulling you back under him.

Steve puts his weight on you, trapping you underneath him as he begins to undress you. You try to roll onto your back, but his knee keeps you in place. You fight to keep your shirt on, knowing you wore nothing but your panties underneath it. But you were fighting blind. You kicked up, the heels of your feet hitting the backs of Steve’s strong thighs. He manhandles you easily as he rolls you onto your back, finally ridding you of your cotton shield.

Your hands went to your chest before he could. He pried your arms away, baring your breasts to him with a jerked jiggle. He licked his lips as he cupped and squeezed your breast. You flinched as if his touch had burned you, and in some sense, it had. Your eyes widened in shame as Steve blew on your nipples, the skin hardening into pointed peaks. He brings his lips to them, circling them with his tongue. Sucking, licking, pinching. You press your lips together to keep you from whimpering, and you close your eyes in hopes you can will him away. But your feeble defense attempts don’t last long.

Your eyes snap open as you feel his lips leave your breasts to trail kisses down to your navel, stopping at the band of your underwear.

“Please…” you beg. You bite your lip to keep it from trembling as fresh tears begin to form at the corners of your eyes.

Steve smiles against your skin, “I’m going to make you mine, (Y/N). ‘M gonna make you feel so good, doll.”

You stifle a sob as you feel him slide your panties off past your ankles, his fingers scorching your skin as they explore back up between your thighs. Instinctively, you try to close your legs around his hands. But he doesn’t stop. Steve digs his fingers into the soft skin of your inner thighs as he forcefully spreads you wide. Your pussy on full display to him. You stiffen under his gaze, your face burning with shame as he stares in awe at your spread folds. He runs a finger from your clit to your entrance, dipping knuckle-deep into your channel. Your thighs flex as your body tenses at the intrusion. He adds another and languidly pumps them in and out, curling and scissoring them. You fight against the blossoming heat within your belly. Your shame grows as you hear the squelch of your wetness around his pumping fingers.

Steve presses a firm thumb to your clit and you cry out before you can stop yourself. He pumps his fingers into you harder, faster, as he pulls more moans and cries from your lips. You sob as you feel that coil deep within your belly begin to unravel with every stroke and pump. You fight against your own body as you keep yourself from teetering over the edge of pleasure, refusing to let yourself submit to him. But Steve had other plans for you. Suddenly, before you could register his movements, you felt his tongue against your most intimate area. You mewled and curled your toes as he fucked you with his tongue, his thumb never stopping their firm and fast circles against your clit. You sobbed as your body convulsed with white-hot pleasure, and before you could stop yourself, you came on his tongue with a loud, dragged out moan.

You sniffled as you cried, but whether it was from the intensity of your orgasm or your shame and fear, you didn’t know. The lines were starting to blur for you.

Steve gently kissed around your folds before crawling up over you. He held your face and forced your lips to his once more before he began to undress, leaving the taste of yourself on your tongue as he pulled away with a wet smack. He unclothed himself, then. Stripping himself of his spangled-stars and red and white stripes. He looked down at you with dark, lust-filled eyes, and a breathless quirk of his lips.

You were limp as he folded you to his needs. Bringing your bent and spread knees to your chest as he took himself in his hands. His length stood tall and proud, the tip swollen and leaking down this thick shaft with anticipation. Your legs flinched as they tried to close on their own. You choked on a sob as he wrenched them apart. Your heart hammered in your chest as you watched him tap your pussy with his cock, running the tip up and down your folds as he wet himself with your soaking arousal until finally, he pressed himself into your entrance. You let out a strained whine as he slammed into you.

Steve’s eyes were shut and mouth slightly agape as he hisses at your tightness. His hips thrust in excitement as you clench around him. You whimper again as he slides out, just to slam himself back in. Your body jolts with every lust-driven thrust. He slides his hands under you and brings them to hold onto your shoulders, bringing you down to meet his every forceful thrust. The sound of skin slapping and lewd moans fill your bedroom, your sweat sheen bodies glowing under the moonlight. Steve speeds up, mercilessly hammering that hidden sweet spot that makes you scream and clench around his cock. You spasm and shake as Steve forces another orgasm from you.

“Tell me you love me,” he pants.

You shake your head, pushing on his shoulders as the realization of your situation comes crashing back into you.

His hand wraps around your throat as he pounds into you harder than before, “Say it, (Y/N).”

You scratch at his hand as your vision begins to dot and blacken, “I–I love you…”

“Louder,” he demands, “‘I love you, Steve’, say it, doll, I wanna hear you say it.” he moans.

“I love you, Steve,” you choke out.

He releases his grip on you then, and you cough and gasp for air. His rhythm becomes erratic as his hips drive into you with renewed vigor, “Again.”

“I love you, Steve,” you moan.

His body jerks as his hips stutter to a stop. Steve comes with your name on his lips, and you whined as you felt his warmth flood inside of you. He panted above you, his hips languidly thrusting as his abdomen clenched with his drawn out release. He pulled out of you and collected the spunk that leaked from your weeping cunt on his fingers. He brought them to your lips and forced you to suck them clean.

“I love you, too, doll. Forever and ever,”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*тαgℓιѕт*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧: @hoosier-daddi

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