#Mary Shelley sorta

[hypo-critic-art]

Some of my photogram works inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein :]

[britneyshakespeare]

The shy bachelor Godwin thought that Mary Robinson was not only intelligent and "Rational," but also incomparably beautiful. His daughter Mary Shelley recorded that "Among his acquaintances were several women, to whose society he was exceedingly partial, and who were all distinguished for personal attractions and talents. Among them may be mentioned the celebrated Mary Robinson, whom to the end of his life he considered as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but though he admired her so greatly, their acquaintance scarcely attained intimate friendship."

Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, and Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson (2004) by Paula Byrne, page 322, contained in the beginning of Chapter 22: Radical

[ashstfu]

hii ashh!! i hope you're doing good <33 wanted to stop by and ask for some good nature related recs (poems and books) or just yk some easy reads talking about the beauty---of simple things, of slow days, of a bird flying or the waves moving~~ (healing sorta?)

hi :) i think mary oliver is the best for a defined view on the natural world around her like devotions & upstream, or some percy bysshe shelley and walt whitman! other titles i recommend —

bright dead things – ada limon

the wild iris – louise glück

gilead – marilynne robinson

peace like a river – leif enger

winter morning walks – ted kooser

the book of delights – ross gay

dandelion wine – ray bradbury

the hurting kind – ada limon

[ethersierra]

I've seen some fics where Lup and/or Barry were super into like skeletal remains as decor, or bones in general etc. Just like sorta full send really into that shit. But I think it would be more complex for her.

They would want to know where those bones are from: whose, where, how were they obtained? I mean animal bones is one thing, Lup wouldn't necessarily mind keeping them in a sort of sciencey or decorative way, as long as she knows they died of natural causes and were properly treated. I think Barry would be more interested in a holistic approach, preserving specimens for various studies and whatnot. He doesn't care as much about decoration but the taxidermied badger looks pretty nice on their mantle.

But with human/person I guess? It's more complicated for her. She wouldn't just buy a skull, or if they came upon a cave with skeletons, she wouldn't start looting. Maybe some of the other creepazoids (affectionate) in her cohort would go for it, after they do some initial forensic analysis, but she stops them and insists they remain where they found them, or are returned to their families so that they can decide what to do with them.

But I do think that she would like to have bones as decor. I think she would do it only in a way which honors that person. Maybe she uses her own bones (that's the thing about liches, huh), or it's someone who has asked her to keep their bones when they die, or they're inherited. She wouldn't just have bones to have bones. The impact and ethics of her actions are really important to her.

I also imagine if the situation arose, she would pull a Mary Shelley and keep Barry's calcified heart in her desk. I feel like she might.

[maxwell-grant]

Could I hear more of your thoughts on Doc Savage and the archetype he created? How does it relate to modern superheroes more specifically Reed Richards? (I know that you dislike Doc Savage, so sorry if this bothers you.)

Sorta like this, if we take a look at how Doc's archetype was formed and consolidated, and how that affected the Superheroes and Reed Richards specifically. (also please don't apologize, you all can ask me questions about whatever, seriously)

"Doc Savage" is recognizable in lots of other characters but there is a difference between specific pastiches or tributes or parodies of Doc (Doc Samson, Edison Rex, Jonas Venture), and characters who are evoking Doc Savage as his own archetype to draw initial inspiration from (Tom Strong, Bane, Clark Kent), and if we pull at Doc's roots we're gonna get to prior characters like Tarzan and Sherlock who were the ones to introduce or codify much of what are now commonplace superhero traits or the ones to introduce much of what Doc was originally pulling from.

I wanna draw some lines in the sand separating what is it that these characters brought to the table, in the road to get to Reed Richards and what exactly is it that Reed and Doc have in common vs things they have that are mainly taken from characters before them/grandfathered in their respective mediums. So let's go over the Archetypes here:

The Sci-Fi Superman: Coined by Peter Coogan. Through some strange birth or scientific intervention, these characters have superhuman powers and abilities that set them irrevocably apart from humanity, nearly forcing them to usually fall into the roles of saviors, rulers, destroyers, or ostracized/self-imposed hermits. Unless they find a purpose requiring said abilites, they cannot be permitted to exist and usually meet a tragic demise or is stripped of said power. Formative example is The Creature from Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), and others include Hugo Danner from Gladiator (Phillip Wylie) and Bill Dunn from The Reign of The Superman (Jerry Siegel). Coogan considers John Carter the first wholly positive and heroic SF superman, which is disputable, but more on Carter later.

Pulp Ubermensch: The Great Man turned do-gooding adventurer with a prosocial agenda. A human who is physically, mentally, and/or morally superior to those around him as a result of training/upbringing, skilled at everything the story requires him to, who applies his talents and abilities near-exclusively to fight evil. Formative example is Nick Carter (created by John R. Coryell and penned by Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey), who established much of what would eventually become pulp hero and superhero convention consequently.

The Great Adventurer: I'm naming these as a counterpoint to The Great Detective, the fantastical globetrotting adventurer/explorer hero who can go anywhere and do anything, who takes to the world as the detective takes to the city. The idea of a wealthy, offbeat, yet good-natured pulp hero who goes around righting wrongs with like-minded assistants. Formative example here is Rocambole (Ponson du Terrail), in most ways a definitive early Pulp Ubermensch, and arguably the first proto-superhero to assemble a gang of odd companions with a variety of talents and backgrounds to aid him, which is what both the Fabulous Five and the Fantastic Four can trace roots back to.

Pulp Supermen: Offshoots of the Sci-Fi Superman as adventure protagonists in serialized stories, where their superhuman natures and status are alleviated and redirected by the need of their capabilities somewhere or in service of something, and thus they get around the ruler/savior/destroyer fate by being heroes with a social calling akin to the Pulp Ubermensch, dedicated to use their powers near-exclusively to fight injustice without rocking the boat of society by their presence (or if necessary, assert dominion ONLY in a setting outside of human society, such as the jungle or Martian civilization). Distinguished from the Pulp Ubermensch by their greater larger-than-life explicitly superhuman abilities, that they don't need to be morally/mentally superior to the extent of a Pulp Ubermensch, and by the fantastical settings and tone of their adventures. Formative examples are John Carter of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes (both created by Edgar Rice Burroughs), with Tarzan quoted by Lester Dent as a specific influence on Doc (there are others but we're skipping most of those not relevant here)

The Science Adventurer: A frequently-used name to describe Doc Savage and Doc Savage-alikes. Doc Savage can be described, in archetype word salad terms, as a Pulp Superman who calls upon the Pulp Ubermensch's great man-ness and urban social calling, and who combines a Sci-Fi Superman origin and physical traits with The Great Adventurer's explorer disposition, righteousness and band of companions. The main thing that sets him apart from the characters listed prior is his focus on scientific prowess, technology, reasoning and polymathic skills, the importance of the "Doc" part of his name as it where.

The Superhero: you already know what these are and how they relate to the above. I've written a couple of things about the differences between pulp heroes and superheroes and it's a subject I'm of constantly mixed opinions on even regarding stuff I wrote, so I'm linking these two written a year apart if you want an idea of where those differences are.

And so we get to Reed, who I'm naming a Science-Adventurer Superhero as a merger of the last two. Both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby mentioned several times that they read Doc Savage aplenty during the Depression and it shows in elements such as the Baxter Building (an expansion of Doc's headquarters in the Empire State Building - instead of just the 86th floor, The Four get the entire skyscraper), the specialized aircraft and vehicles, the fights and antagonism between the cantankerous and anti-social Ben Grimm and the smart-mouthed Johnny Storm mirroring the bickering spats between the bestial Monk and the silver-tongued Ham, and of course Beast from X-Men being more closeled modeled on Monk's ape-ish traits and scientific expertise (there's a fairly large argument to be made, that I think accounts for some of why Beast is, like that, in recent comics, that Ben Grimm and Hank McCoy both divided Monk Mayfair's every trait between themselves and ultimately flipped the script in the long run before taking it to the farthest extremes possible as polarized opposites of each other, with Ben initially getting most of the bad parts and making them the best ones, and Hank initially getting all the good ones and making them into the worst ones)

As far as I know, Reed Richards was not consciously modeled after Doc Savage (although Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's Private Strong used the origin story of a professor raising his son in a lab to be perfect in total isolation of other humans, which Lester likely may have pulled from Phillip Wylie's The Savage Gentleman to begin with), although it's commonly said that the direct precursors of the Four, the Challengers of the Unknown, were modeled after Doc Savage and the Fabulous Five's make-up. The members of the Fantastic Four are all based on 50s sci-fi archetypes, with Reed as the quintessential scientist, the grey-templed pipe-smoking patriarch frontman of the expeditions, and some creators over the years seem to have drawn upon Doc Savage as a model Reed. I'm thinking specifically of Mark Waid here, who openly named Doc Savage in his pitch bible:

The eternal problem with Scientifically Inclined Genius Adventures, the reason they don't ring true, is because in real life scientists spend all their damn time in the lab. Not Reed.

F'r pete's sake, we know he undertook all sorts of Indiana Jones missions as a younger man, we've seen that he actively enlisted in a war, and oh yeah, he stole a rocketship and tried to take it to the moon."

Tommy B put his finger on it when he suggested I stop thinking of Reed as the Professor from Gilligan's Island and instead think of him more like Doc Savage. When Reed encounters mental or logistic obstacles in his quest for knowledge, he thinks through them.

Doc Savage, of course, isn't the perfect model - he's a little more blood-and-gristle than Reed, more invested in the search for justice than for knowledge, and a little more "in the moment" as a general rule. Reed's more like Peter Weller as Buckaroo Banzai, they have the same aloof, detached nature. Unless active danger is staring him right in the face, Reed often seems a bit distant and not completely here because his mind is ten minutes in the future.

That addresses the Science-Adventurer aspect, which leaves us with the Superhero side of the equation.

With Doc Savage you of course have one of the, if not the, main archetypal pulp heroes, a character that both Superman and Batman would take a great deal from, and "pulp hero" in itself is a term that exists to define these characters more so in relation to superheroes than what they were actually like in their own stories, time periods and mediums. The superhero as a concept is founded on Superman and Batman and their dychotomy. Costumed Avenger vs Ubermensch, mortal and immortal, light and dark, Dayman and Nightman (AHH-ahhh-AAHHHHH!), and that dynamic is specifically a result of Superman and Batman being direct descendants from Doc Savage and The Shadow respectively, who were Street & Smith's (and by extension the American pulps) Big Two, the top dogs of 1930s hero pulps, and direct opposites to each other.

Doc Savage was created in response to The Phantom Detective (who was the first successful Shadow imitator and thus defined it as the thing everyone was gonna have to do or respond to) and was in many ways a modernized revamp-almost-copy of Street & Smith's Nick Carter during his heyday, in origin and first case and super strength and omnicapable skills and general Great Man-ness and gadgetry and mission statement and so on. Doc was co-created by the editor of Nick Carter Magazine, John Nanovic, and the first response to the Phantom Detective that S&S planned was a reboot of Nick Carter as a generic hardboiled detective, published on March 1933, the same month as Doc's debut, and obviously Doc would go on to achieve much greater success and thus would popularize those traits again with himself as the figurehead archetype of them (not unlike what Superman and Batman would later do).

Unlike The Shadow, Doc Savage does not operate under a secret identity or mask. He is not the hidden master of the city and has no division between his alter egos, and because he performs in broad daylight as a celebrity, is theorically held to social scrutiny, and is fully sanctioned and approved by law enforcement and works with the authorities with public transparency (minus the crime college but let's just, not, for now), it greatly upends and affects the approach he takes to fighting crime. He only has one identity, the greatest man of all time as the stories will remind you at every turn, by his author's own words he "manifests Christliness", and while not much separates Doc Savage's skills from Nick Carter's, he is explicitly and textually framed as superhuman (even a "superman", that term was deployed a few times), and he operates in a contemporary, urban setting that most Pulp Supermen cannot touch without veering into Sci-Fi Superman territory.

Within the hero pulp format that S&S started with Nick Carter and renewed with The Shadow, with the scientific explorer angle, you could argue Doc Savage, in almost exactly the same way as he does in his stories, worked out the solution to an unfixable problem: Turns out you can be as over-the-top super as you want, so long as you have a procession of equivalent super menaces to fight, don't upset society (and if you do it, not where the public where can see, keep it a secret that you can be blackmailed over by crooks you will inevitably silence okay look I'll stop now), have whatever incredible miracle cures and achievements and charity you do work on take place off screen where you never have to deal with them too seriously, and know how to pick your fights.

His service to others resolves the ruler/savior/destroyer conundrum. Savage aids individuals who face problems beyond their control, does great work in advancing medicine and science, and alleviates suffering through charity work, but he leaves the institutions of society in place.

He faces a never-ending succession of villains threatening society, an eternal frontier of gangsters and super-scientific menaces who play the role that Indians take in frontier narratives. The unresolvable nature of crime makes this frontier eternal, so Savage can place his superiority in service to the community and never risk turning into a ruler, savior, or destroyer because he can find challenges sufficient to absorb his energies.

The Savage solution—the hero position would be adopted by the creators of other prosocial supermen to come, including Superman, although only the adventures of Superman would be set in contemporary America.

Thus instead of marking an end to the bourgeois domination of society, as Nietzsche foresaw, the superman serves to protect that domination through myth-narratives. - Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre, by Peter Coogan

Reed Richards, in turn, is defined (INCORRECTLY, I say, feeling a plasma crackle barely miss my skull) as the smartest man on the planet, a mental superhuman who operates on a level above and beyond that of everyone around him, and a freak accident during a space travel grants him physical superhumanity to match, with his body able to morph and bend under his will. He alleviates the ruler/savior/destroyer conundrum Coogan described in much of the exact same way described above, kept busy with an endless procession of strange dimensions and aliens and supervillain challenges, and Mark Waid's famous confession scene in Fantastic Four #489 addresses the fate that looms over the Sci-Fi Superman directly, with the "very arrogant man who did something very stupid" pointificating to his toddler child just how necessary it was to ensure that the world would not fear and destroy the people he'd irreversibly mutated as a result of hubris, what is even the point of his grandstanding title and colorful outfit and public adventures and all that.

The life of superpowered adventurer celebrities was a necessity, and his superhero persona, Mr Fantastic, is a tabloid-catching act of penitence to mask his ultimate shame and to compensate the people he loves most. He lives for science, he craves discovery above all, but as far back as the Lee/Kirby stories, he still drags the team into awful intrusive press conferences none of them want to go but must, he sits through meetings with hardass generals to buy his team more leeway and trust, he takes the time to stretch across the city to visit sick children in hospitals and say hello to passing helicopters, he has to be the stick-in-the-mud dad who stretches himself thin to keep Johnny and Ben from ditching the team or seriously hurting each other (those first Johnny and Ben spats get way more violent than you'd expect), and he has to make difficult and even manipulative and harsh decisions even then to save the most lives he can. He carries a responsability to his family and loved ones first and foremost, and fashioning himself and them into superheroes is how he lives up to that responsability. It's what allows them to exist and thrive in-universe as much as out of it.

(We're not gonna play catch-up to the "why doesn't Reed Richards cure cancer" conversation but even that, in itself, is an extension of a thread that we can trace back to Doc and the Sci-Fi Supermen before him, when seams in the fantasy start showing with the introduction of consequence, a trend that particularly catches up to these scientist superhero characters who followed in Doc Savage's wake, and obviously caught up to Doc himself several times by now, for reasons @artbyblastweave describes as "a consequence of contemporary writers being Allowed To Notice And Unpack Things" and elaborates on very neatly here)

As a superhero, Reed Richards exists in conversation with Superman and Batman, same as every other character within the superhero "genre", which means he also exists in conversation with those traits borrowed from Doc Savage, and The Shadow, and all these other guys listed who were crucial in their development and a lot of others I'm leaving out of the conversation for now. A crucial part of that conversation and where the Fantastic Four figure into it is the fact that they were designed to not be traditional superheroes but to flip most if not all the conventions established on it's head, a part of that being their initial lack of uniforms (and when they did get uniforms they were just that, uniforms, rather than costumes), the lack of a secret identity, and the fact that the Four are scientists and explorers first, and crimefighting superheroes a distant second they're forced to frequently make a close second or first priority. Marvel made it's big defining pop culture splash with the Fantastic Four by turning superhero convention on it's head and doing as much as they could to do the opposite of what Brand Echh was doing.

And that's kinda the main reason they end up inviting similarities with Doc Savage and other pulp heroes, because they're going out of their way to imitate and subvert traits and tropes that Superman and Batman were already imitating and subverting from those guys in the first place, that they in turn were imitating and subverting from guys that came before them, and etc.

Archetypes are breakthroughs, and no breakthrough happens in a vacuum. In the end, a lot of these strands and connections between these characters are less specifically the result of writers consciously following in the footsteps of Doc Savage and those that came before or alongside him, and more so with the fact that there's only so many left turns you can take before you just end up in a circle, or reinventing the wheel as it were.

[chichirichick]

Santa's a Little Late, but...

I had the honor of getting my wife from another life @anxietybard for the @sesecretsanta this year! Read the SoMa pining below or on AO3.

Title: Taking a Leap

Pairing: SoMa, background hints of Marie/Stein, Kid/Star

Rating: T

This wasn’t how I wanted to spend the start of my weekend, but that perfect little girl scout of a meister of mine just had to rope me into another one of her half-baked plans. “You know she has the combined genetic make-up of a dissection-happy scientist and a woman who breaks toilets.” 

“A toilet,” Maka corrected as if that made it any better. “And that was just a rumor.” Her prim little sashay ended at the mouth of the walkway. She turned on her heels, planted her fists on her hips, and that bottom lip popped into a pout before she seemed to think better of it. With as flat a line to her lips as possible, Maka griped, “I don’t know why you bothered to come if all you’re going to do is complain.”

This should not be my circus– should not be my monkeys– but staying home alone on a Friday night? I could count the number of Fridays—let's not mention other days of the week—I’d spent without Maka on one hand.

Way to make it sound like you’re a couple, loser.

Ah, and there was the spiral, right on cue. Not that this was anything new, but a few recent weird life events had sent me on more than one mental tailspin: this year, that idiot Star and our often emotionally stunted boss Kid had jumped an unexpected hurdle into each others’ beds.

To my fucking surprise, this ignited a shit-ton of issues for me– no, no, I have no problem with two dudes shacking up, even though thinking about either of those two having sex isn’t high on my list of joyful thoughts. It was just this goddamn hazy, dreamy truth that I’d always tried to hold on to: weapons always ended up with their meisters. I mean, there was no chance in hell that Liz or Patty could withstand more than a partnership with Kid, and Tsubaki already had the patience of a saint just being Star’s weapon, but… I don’t know. Just the idea that the sorta unbreakable bond weapon and meister have–

“Soul.”

Oops. I blinked as my brain scrambled back out of that catastrophic corkscrew to face the one I was in now. “Maka, are you serious?” I slapped on a slick grin for good measure. “I watched you make flashcards all week– I want to make sure Shelley has some fun.”

She rolled her eyes before spinning back to her original trajectory.

Mission accomplished– for now. I followed a few steps behind her, sorta mesmerized by the wave of her hair as she left it untied. That’s been happening more often… wonder if she’s tryin’ a new style or somethin’.

Wow, creeper.

My shoulders crumpled a little further as I sighed. Sometimes that little demon was a real piece of shit.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

Soul being there shouldn’t have irked me, and I honestly don’t even know why I complained. Why I was pouting. Why I was unable to even laugh at his—well deserved—joke about the myriad of activities I had planned.

It’s just…

This was a test. A pivotal, life-altering test. 

I hear it: Soul being here for a momentous decision? Of course– or really, it should be of course– but there was a giant roadblock. One that, if you asked me straight to my face, I’d deny even if you were threatening to pull fingernails. In my head, though… the moment played back perfectly in my mind:

Marie, someone who had filled at least a quarter of the empty spot my mother had left behind, wheeled behind curtains to give birth to her long-awaited bundle of joy.

Soul, taking my hand and squeezing as he gently chided: “Don’t worry– she’ll be fine.”

Me, frozen, watching the fabric flutter before my voice—so alien, so far away—croaked from my throat: “I won’t ever be a mother.”

Any flashback to it still sets my teeth on edge, especially as the moment fades out on Soul’s shocked face. I captured each one of those syllables and squashed it down, all while hoping that Soul wouldn’t let it die. I wanted him to question me– to challenge with some Soul-icism that was a comforting mix of mocking and mollification. Because I know why I said it, but I’m all too sure he doesn’t.

And there it was: a giant roadblock.

Well, as if not being in a relationship wasn’t enough of a roadblock.

Sometimes Soul’s not the only one with that dark little voice in his head.

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This was a disaster, and I hate to say I told her so, but I told her so. Okay, and yeah, I don’t actually hate proving Little-Miss-Can’t-Be-Wrong wrong. I’m not above smug satisfaction at being right, but watching Maka struggling against the will of a four-year-old had soured it just a bit. 

“I think it’s time for dinner,” Maka mumbled as the last of her confidence deflated.

“Actually–” Man, was I risking my entire life by grabbing her wrist and turning those tear brimmed eyes back to me. I was at a total loss as to why the hell she was taking it so personally, but I couldn’t let her drown in her own saltwater. “Shelley’s gonna make dinner. I’ll supervise.” You would have thought I’d dog-eared the page of her favorite book since the look I got was nothing but a bubbling cauldron of rage with a fine shimmering top of terror. What the fuck’s gotten into you?

“F-fine.” She fumbled over the word before forcing herself out of my grip. Without another peep, Maka disappeared into the archway to the living room, leaving me to feed a sigh to the ceiling.

“Do I really get to make dinner?” The hopeful little chirp sent my eyes back down to Marie’s mini-me. “Really, Soul?”

“Yup”—I ruffled a hand through her hair—“and just to warn you, I’m lazy. So you’re doin’ most of the work.” I made a show of drooping in the doorway, enjoying the way it made Shelley erupt into giggles.

“C’mon, Soul, c’mon!” There was plenty of tugging, dragging, and laughing involved before we made it into the kitchen. 

“Alright, show me the pots.” Not a second of confusion crossed that little face– Shelley instantly jumping into action and proving my point almost instantly. 

Well, my point if I had made a point with Maka, but Death knows she wouldn’t hear it. The irony? Kids this age are willful little know-it-alls who want to do, not be told, and least of all, be coddled.

Sound like anyone we know?

Since I had kept all that in mind, I was living the ideal: water boiling, sauce in a pot, and a very determined kiddo stirring with her big-girl spoon while I chopped. Shelley was practically preening while she inhaled the tomatoey steam. “Can we save some for Mama and Papa?”

“‘Course.” I couldn’t stop the laugh that followed as she wiggled with delight. Okay, so maybe the homicidal doctor gene didn’t pass down.

“Soul?”

I was busy trying to keep all my fingers intact so all I could do was hum out: “Hm?” 

“Is Miss Maka always so mean?”

My knife slowed, half because Shelley deserved careful consideration to her question and half because I needed to glance back at the door. No, there were no jade eyes scowling at me from the frame, but… ah, fuck it. “Not sure I’d call it mean. I know she doesn’t mean it that way, but–”

“Then why does Miss Maka keep trying to tell me what to do?” she complained.

“I know it sounds like she’s tellin’ you what to do,” I murmured, “but it’s more tryin’ to protect you.” I shrugged to buy time. What was her problem, anyway? What was the helicopter parent act that she had going on tonight?

“But I’m a big girl!”

Boy, did I want to snort out a laugh. There was too much irony again, and a part of me wanted Maka to be listening. “Yeah, you are, but when someone cares about you, sometimes they go a little haywire. Sorta wanna just wrap you up in their love to keep you from anythin’ bad.” Okay, so, maybe it wasn’t just Maka who should be listening. I stared down at my hands with a sigh, feeling the sting of that insight trying to needle into my brain. My heart didn’t want to budge, but… “Think you could take it as a sign she really cares, and we’ll work on it from there?”

Oh? And when are you gonna work on that yourself?

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

I wasn’t sure if it was my ego or my heart that was more bruised, especially as elation followed the pair into the dining room. Shelley was precariously balancing a bowl of salad—is she old enough to do that?—while Soul steadily carried a pot beside her. The objections were on my tongue when Soul’s stole everything away:

Let her do it, he mouthed.

Oh, yes, definitely a strike to my ego. It yelped along with a myriad of annoyed petulant pleas: How does he know what’s best? Since when is he a child whisperer? How does he know what’s right and I–

I flattened a hand over my mouth as if the words were going to flee from behind my teeth. It was all so dark, so ugly, and it was getting me nowhere. My eyes burned as Shelley joined me at the table. Soul was quick to turn back and retrieve the pasta before sliding into his seat. I honestly wanted to disappear. This was all a failed experiment because every ticking moment was proving me right: I was only capable of needing mothering, not giving it and–

Soul’s hand tightened around mine, making me jump. For a moment, I was sure I’d see heads bowed and “Grace” starting on Shelley’s lips, but Soul was just watching Shelley serve herself. The little girl was in the throes of victory—even though some of the tablecloth had suffered casualties—while Soul ran a gentle thumb over my knuckles.

Holding hands wasn’t anything exactly new, but this… I risked another glance at his face, and while the turn of his smirk spoke “cool as a cucumber,” the light pink of his ears was that well-honed hint that he was nervous. About what? Nervous that I was– yes, Maka, duh. Soul could be dense about certain things, but I had to admit that he wasn’t about people’s feelings. He could read a room just as easily as sheet music.

I let my stare linger from that peony stain to the strong set of his jaw before rising to scarlet eyes that were now focused on me. “You ready to eat?”

I squeezed his hand, watching as that made the corner of his mouth twitch. Whether tonight was a losing battle or not, one thing was clear: I had Soul with me. That was always enough. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

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Fuck, I was starting to think I was insane. Suddenly, Maka wasn’t Maka anymore. Or, I dunno, maybe she was more Maka than she was before? Again, fuck. Because whatever funk she’d been in at the beginning of the night had suddenly lifted as soon as dinner was over. I’d seen the girl hangry before, but…?

Or your lame little hand-holding actually worked.

As if that’d ever be enough.

It was Maka’s turn since we’d hit the toiletries stage of the bedtime routine. That means—again, what the fuck—she’d settled back into the observer role. No more bossing– no more worrying over whether or not an activity was gonna leave toes and fingers intact. Just an enigmatic smile and eyes that wouldn’t quit following me around the room. I couldn’t tell if I hated it or liked it– again, just insane.

“Soul!”

I jolted at the call before steadying myself for the mosey down the hall. Shelley was tucked to her chin, Maka sitting there with a book poised. I watched the scene, a smirk on my lips. “Whatdya need me for?”

“You have to do the bear voice,” Shelley instructed.

“Apparently my voice isn’t deep enough,” Maka added with one of the only self-deprecating smiles I’d ever seen on her. I didn’t like it.

That sent me striding, moving to plop on the other side of the bed. “Lemme see.” Maka angled the book my way. I glanced at Shelley, seeing that childlike expectant smile. Next was Maka, and… well, there was some sorta expectation there too that I couldn’t exactly get a fix on. I didn’t have time for that thought; my little Goldilocks wouldn’t wait.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

I’d made some lame excuse to stand in the kitchen. Well, popcorn was a fitting one at least since we had time to kill before Stein and Marie got home. Each pop! had my nerves tingling– little beats of gunfire to rip little holes in my heart. I guess it was all the melancholy of letting my dream die.

I wasn’t so stupid as to create white-picket fences. Mantles with family photos in neat little rows. The sing-song voice of children playing in the yard.

We were, at best, soldiers. In my mind, only pieces of that would even be possible, and even then…

Roadblocks.

Unrequited love. My neediness. My stubbornness. My… well, everything since tonight had shown me the obvious truth: I’m not made to be a mother.

Because that was the core covered in the mud of those words I had said to Soul. I had watched Marie in her sacrifice and knew—so deeply that it wrenched my heart from its place between my ribs—that my mother had never done the same for me. Sure, there was the actual birth, but the unconditional love that came after? And obviously that hadn’t been passed down. My patience today—or utter lack thereof—had been the final nail in the coffin. I was too stubbornly myself, and the self that I was most certainly didn’t fit the motherly mold.

“Yo.”

I just about jumped for the counter, spinning quickly to catch Soul with an eyebrow raised as he stood in the doorway. “What?”

“Are you coming in this century, or am I starting this movie by myself?”

“I’m just trying to make sure all the kernels are popped,” I grumbled as I turned back to the bag circling in the microwave.

“Alright, little miss perfect,” he teased before his footsteps got lost in the hush of the carpet. “Don’t blame me when you hate the flick.”

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

Maka was fidgeting even though I was sure I’d picked a total winner of a film– some stupid puzzle of a thriller that she could use that big brain to tear apart for two hours. Instead, it was me she was tearing apart, and not being a bit sly about it. Her finger was toying with the power button and after a few more circles she finally took the plunge. I was stuck staring at a black screen.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?” I could be a little proud of the nonchalant, bullshitting tone I’d actually managed to put into that. I still couldn’t fix the arms that protectively crossed my chest or the bit of a grimace that was tainting the side of my smirk.

“You don’t have to be modest,” she pressed, green eyes starting an inquisition. “I want to know why–how you’re so good with kids.”

I shrugged, but the stone in her features told me I wasn’t off the hook. “Sorta– yeah, I had cousins and stuff.”

“And stuff.”

Woo-boy, I was toeing a line, but… there was Solomon Evans, and then there was Soul Eater. I’d never been too sure about burdening Maka with the old me, and this was sure it. Still, I dipped that toe: “Before my grandma died–”

The start of that brought her eyes wider, sweetness– softness coming to her eyes.

“–there used to be a mob of us. Mom’s got three brothers and a sister and each of ‘em wasn’t shy about having kids. Wes and I are the only pair.” I swallowed the old urge to button my lips because she was hanging off each word with a death-grip. “But they were all younger. Mostly babies and toddlers, so I got used to that kinda kid.”

She just nodded.

I cleared my throat. “But when Grandma died, our idiot parents just fell into fighting about inheritance and all that stopped.” I suddenly realized that secret had been a rock in my gut, and while it still scratched me raw coming up, its absence was a weight I didn’t fucking miss. “Got used to it, so I missed it.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sure, she could be apologizing for the shit my parents did, but I knew there was more to it. Her eyes were a little too shiny, and that button of her nose was turning a light pink. Maybe my sense had been lost along with that burden, since I couldn’t stop the whisper: “Why’d you ask Marie to do this?”

She flinched and her lips buttoned tight.

“Maka,” I pushed.

Her reply was a sigh, her fingers flexing on the channel changer and threatening to undo the silence. I grabbed them, ruining her chance for escape. “How do you know I asked?”

“‘Cause,” I muttered back.

“Don’t you think I’m responsible enough for Marie to just ask me?” Any playfulness in that was erased by her eyes falling away from me.

“Bookworm”—my throat burned with the love I couldn’t hide—“I know you. Doin’ somethin’ like this… what were you tryin’ to prove?”

She blinked, the liquid no longer just a shine in her eyes but small rivers down her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. I failed anyway.”

Her arms tensed, trying to pull back her hands but I slipped into a firm hold on her wrists. I wasn’t gonna let her get away, not if it meant she was gonna break somewhere on her own. “Failed at what?”

“I was no good at this,” she whispered as that horrible, un-Maka-ly smile plastered on her lips again. 

I wanted to roll my eyes. “Maka–”

“No,” she decimated that even with her softened voice. “I told you, right? I’m just– I won’t ever be a mother.”

Oh. There it was. Definitely not something I had forgotten, but we were sixteen. I fucking barely knew my own feelings let alone how to navigate hers. What I did know though? This was a deep hurt, and I most likely had this one chance to get it right. “The first time I held my cousin, I dropped him.”

Maka blinked, brows furrowing. “What?”

I produced at least half of a laugh thanks to the memory floating over my brain. “Not dropped-dropped, but yeah, he was nuts as a toddler and just threw himself everywhere, and since I didn’t know and hadn’t tried before, I made the mistake of trying to lift him when he was having one of those tantrums and pow!” 

“But–”

“But nothin’,” I spat. “You can’t just throw yourself into something and expect it to be second nature. Even meistering—you know, that thing that’s literally in your blood—didn’t come to you without practice.” I gave her wrists a shake for good measure since I could see the argument forming on her lips. “You think four hours with a bossy preschooler means you couldn’t manage a kid of your own?”

“Nothing I did was right,” she hissed.

“That ain’t exactly true,” I pressed. “You tried. That was the rightest thing you could do.”

The pause that came after had me just about ready to tear out my hair. It wasn’t until she fidgeted, sighed, and tossed her chin back towards me that she spoke again. “Rightest isn’t a word,” Maka corrected softly as her eyes finally met mine. Her smile was dull, but at least it wasn’t fake anymore. “And I don’t know about trying, but… Soul, this isn’t just you– ‘wrapping me up to keep me from somethin’ bad?’”

My stomach dropped. Of course she’d been listening—of fucking course—but did she get the insinuation there? Love. I had said love. Wrapping someone in love. And I– 

Well, no shit, Eater, she’s sure you love her in that lame weapon way. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

“I’m sorry– I eavesdropped.” For once, she did look a little guilty, but I missed out on it completely. I was staring at my hands, hoping that if the heat I was feeling was a blush, then at least the tilt of my head would hide part of it. “Thanks for standing up for me.”

“Like I said– you were tryin’,” I mumbled. 

The tangle of our hands was suddenly in the forefront of my mind, but as soon as I started to loosen my hold on her wrists, she slid her palms back into mine. “But you’re not messing with me, right?”

“Nah.” One syllable– that’s all I fucking had. She was holding my hands too tightly. I was suffering through slick palms. I was sure at least my ears were pink. I was–

“I’m glad you came.”

Okay, no more at least. If my whole face wasn’t a tomato, then Clapton wasn’t a guitar god.

“It’s funny…” The breathlessness of her laugh drew my eyes back to her face. I had seen that look on her face only a few times before: she was scared, but that elated kind of afraid like she was about to jump off some cliff. “I wanted to do this by myself, but I realized that it always ends up alright if I have you with me.”

Floor, say hello to stomach. Tongue, lose every last control over your muscles. Brain, bluescreen. Here was where that dark, oily voice would usually pop in to ground me again, but even that didn’t have the strength to overcome my hopes at that moment.

It’s not like I imagined white-picket fences. No stupid Macy’s photos in tacky frames. No kids clamoring around the backyard.

We were tools, right? Usually just means to an end, but… 

If there was one thing I did envision, it was having her with me. And sometimes, just sometimes, it was all the happy stuff that could come along with that.

“Soul?”

“Ah,” I tried, but my mouth was still full of cotton.

“I just wanted you to know that, okay?” Her fingers were slipping away. The fucking moment was slipping away, and I knew it, and–

“You’d be good at it,” I blurted.

Trajectory was momentarily paused, her hands hovering between us. “What?”

“Being a mom,” I stammered through, knowing that for once I had no plan. “Maybe it doesn’t feel like it now, but I know you. I know you’d learn, and I know you’d be good at it.”

I had hoped the crying was over with, but new tears blossomed in her eyes. “Oh.”

“And that’s– that’s not me keepin’ you from somethin’ bad,” I murmured.

She nodded, brought her hands back to her face, and did her best to clear the mess. Death, Maka might have been all blotchy and tear-stained, but I couldn’t help but think she was probably the most beautiful I’d ever seen. She was vulnerable, and for once, we’d actually talked about it. I couldn’t help but want that moment to last forever.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

 I wanted to imagine that moment as another thread woven into our connection, and I wish that I… well, all that I could urge myself to do at that point was to plant my head on his shoulder and turn the movie back on as if it were any other night. My bravery does have its limits.

 At first, his heart galloped like we’d just finished a practice fight with Star, but after comfortably melding together over an hour, any thumping was replaced by his gentle snore. I laughed at the predictability: Soul always had a post-stress coma. 

I lifted my head to examine the tilt of his chin, the way his unfussed bangs slightly fell over his eyes. Soul’s mouth was slack, grumbles starting on each inhale. Gently, I tested his cheek with my finger, waiting to see if he was truly dead to the world. He was motionless besides the temporary creation of a dimple.

Wise Soul-isms that I had waited years for danced across my mind: 

You can’t just throw yourself into something and expect it to be second nature.

That was the rightest thing you could do.

I know you’d learn, and I know you’d be good at it.

I was unable to deny the burn that brought to my eyes, and I let it engulf me again. A short, sweet deluge bubbled over my cheeks, rinsing away the last of the bitterness that I’d held onto that night. My other fingers joined in– not to poke, but to slide until I had cupped his cheek.

“Thank you for… being you, Soul.”

I leaned, and my lips brushed against his other cheek.

“Maybe, someday, I’ll know the right words for you, too.”

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

Weird. Yeah, that was the only way to describe it. The feeling like you’re sure you left your wallet at home, but it’s in your damn pocket. Just something off and my brain was sending a muddled report. I tried to blame it on the disturbed sleep– Marie and Stein came home just an hour after I hit the true depth of my snooze.

Either way, gone was the storm-cloud Maka and here was the sunshine, her step light as we made our way back to the apartment. She was a few steps ahead of me, but somehow my little grumble was enough for her to turn a head over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Dunno,” I griped. “Wonderin’ if maybe Stein had the chance to poke around in my sleep.”

For once, Maka didn’t roll her eyes as expected. “Why would you think that?” Her attention faltered, the security door to the building pulling her in.

As I listened to the soft beep of the keypad, I let that marinate. Well, I dunno, Maka, you and I had a pretty heavy talk and then suddenly we weren’t. Yeah, okay, maybe that was the unevenness. Either way, I finally felt like I gained an inch tonight, so I wasn’t about to take a mile. “Y’know, just guts rearranged. Like somebody maybe had their fun while I was snoozin’.”

“Hm?” Her pitch faltered, climbing towards the roof.

Now, I had been joking—not that Stein wouldn’t take advantage of a free exploratory surgery—but that was definitely too much of a panicked frequency from her. “Maka Albarn–”

“I have to–”

Those lithe legs of hers were motoring up the stairs, already up to the next landing. Thankfully we weren’t teens anymore, and with my last growth spurt, she wasn’t leaving me in the dust. “Did that maniac–”

“He only ever did that to Papa, and–”

“Maka Albarn!” The final shout came with the slam of our door, pinning us in the quiet of the apartment after our cat-and-mouse chase.

Her shoulders were tense, back to me as she murmured, “It wasn’t Stein.”

“Uh…” was all I could manage. I didn’t think I was getting an affirmative, and my hands reflexively went to my gut to check my organs.

She pivoted quickly, eyes shining with determination. “It was me.”

“Uh…”

A few steps and she was back in front of me, face now just two inches from mine as she challenged me: “And all it was was this.”

Her lips—fucking Death, her lips!—were right there, an inch from mine. It didn’t matter that they planted on my cheek, I was still sent. Out of order. Gone. 

Maka tried to maintain her bravado, but the next still came with a little of a warble: “Now, is that all that bad?”

“N-no,” I stammered. Since all my sense was gone, and my hands moved of their own volition, grabbing her by the shoulders. “No, I– I–” Her face flushed pink, sending me partially into a panic. This was a misstep– not what she wanted, and I–

“You what?” There was an ultimatum in that question, and the shining clarity in her eyes had me knowing she had already decided something and it was just time for me to catch up.

“Normally don’t people do that sorta thing when someone’s awake?” That murmur ached in my chest with all sorts of want. “Y’know, s-so the other person has the chance to…”

“To?”

To panic– to overload– to– I swallowed that all and leaned in, lips just stopping a centimeter from hers. “To ask for more.”

Oh, thank Death she giggled softly. Maka worried her fingers in the sides of my T-shirt for a second before she tilted on tiptoes. A kiss. A real fucking kiss. Not just weapon and meister. Not friends. Not roommates living in limbo. 

I felt her smile spread before she let go, giving me unnecessary space. Jade eyes shined up at me. “I should have known my actions always speak louder than my words.”

I sighed– this one full of contentment instead of the urge to tear out my hair. This time when I leaned, just our foreheads met, enjoying that closeness just as much. “And I’m always here to catch you when you jump.”

[lochsides]

autumn reading list

it’s autumn! 🍂 all the glorious things start here. with the academic year starting again, it has been a busy time for me, but has that ever stopped me from aiming a little too high? so with that in mind, my somewhat-ambitious-but-still-sorta-plausible autumn reading list

the classics

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (★★★★)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Frankenstien by Mary Shelley

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (★★★★)

the contemporaries

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (★★★★)

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (★★★)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold #2 and #3 by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

the poets

Sylvia Plath Poems selected by Carol Ann Duffy (ON HOLD)

Time Is A Mother by Ocean Vuong (reread) (★★★★★)

let me know what you're reading this season and book recommendations are not only always welcomed but encouraged.

[toriz0]

inspired by @charlottan my ranking of required high school reading

Beloved - Toni Morrison (best book I've ever read)

Night - Elie Wiesel

The Crucible - Arthur Miller

Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley

A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare (fun fact, I played Nick Bottom in our school's production of the show)

Animal Farm - George Orwell (almost crashed the student driver car talking about this with my instructor)

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Macbeth - William Shakespeare

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (read this during the pandemic, was only sorta paying attention)

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

Lord of the Flies - William Golding (starting to get to books I don't like)

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare (we also watched Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet but didn't actually read it, would be 9th if we did)

1984 - George Orwell

Oedipus Rex - Sophocles

Odyssey - Homer

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

The Road - Cormac McCarthy (most fake-deep bullshit book I've ever read)

[grenadinexo]

Did you know that Mary Shelley had sex on her mother's grave? I think this is a fun fact because it just sorta fits her

YES I DID KNOW THIS !!!! super fitting esp since her mom was a hardcore 18th century feminist, i'm sure she would've been fine with it you know

[pearlsoftheparticular]

notes on chapter 2

Tree imagery is strong on pg 9: "I just thought it would be nice to see how people move into a place and start to inhabit it. Settle in. Maybe put down roots," and later, "He is merely expressing anxieties natural for a boy his age who has just been uprooted from his home in the city..."

Impetus: the force or energy with which a body moves. (pg 10)

Valences: 1. A length of decorative drapery attached to the canopy or frame of a bed in order to screen the structure or space beneath it. 2. A whole number that represents the ability of an atom or a group of atoms to combine w/ other atoms or groups of atoms. 3. Psychological term: the subjective value of an event, object, person, or other entity in the life space of the individual. Also, the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an emotional stimulus.

""This is nice," He says, removing a big clump of her blonde hair from the tines and tossing it into the wastebasket." (pg 11) Oddly, not the last time that hair seems to be a focus in this chapter?

"Nevertheless, despite their purely confessional content, it is not a journal entry but rather an unguarded moment captured on on eof the house Hi 8s that demonstrates Karen's almost bewildering dependence on Navidson." (pg 11) "In that peculiar contradiction that serves as connective tissue in so many relationships, it is possible to see that she loves Navidson almost as much as she has no room for him." (pg 12) [italics added by me for emphasis]

Second reference to hair: "I think Lude started giving one of them a trim, whipping out his scissors which he always has on hand, like old gunslingers I guess always had a hand on their Colts - there he goes, snipping locks & bangs... fingers & steel clicking away, tiny bits of hair spitting off into the surrounding turmoil..." (pg 12)

Galveston is a city in Texas (pg 12, footnote 18)

"The devil's ear" pg 15 - Devil's Ear Spring in Gilchrist County, Florida.

A thought: often, the notes here are used to prove, or at least point out, themes of Navidson's story. Should these be taken seriously? Or dismissed as part of the Fiction, even as red herrings?

"Don't forget to tell them about the birds." (pg 13) - Significant? Foreshadowing of his mother? Pelicans. Esp. considering how he works the tooth/eyebrow scar into the story too.

After the boxing/Birds of Paradise/Russian barge story: "... just looking at this story makes me feel a little queasy all of a sudden. I mean how fake it is. Just sorta doesn't sit right with me. It's like there's something beyond it all, a greater story still looming in the twilight, which for some reason I'm unable to see." (pg 15) Could be another reference to the way he used evidence of his abuse in the story (will come up later), also another nod to "authenticity"/existentialism, possibly proof that Story is starting to effect him. Especially considering how the note began when Karen mentioned the water heater, and Johnny seems to attribute that to his own water heater going out.

Vituperative: bitter and abusive. (pg 16)

"...as of late, many have called into question the accuracy of this self portrait, observing that Navidson may have gone too far out of his way to cast himself in a less than favorable light." (pg 17) This chapter begins with a Mary Shelley quote. Does Davidson consider himself Frankenstein, and the House (or the portrait which comes up later), Frankenstein's monster? It seems he carries plenty of blame/guilt on himself. Especially considering, later on that page, ",.. he also, by way of the film, admits to carrying around his own alienating and intensely private obsessions."

First mention of Delial on pg 17. The name itself could potentially be a mix up of a number of things, purposefully misspelled, purposefully carrying multiple meanings, purposefully vague. Delilah (Samson) seems most clear at the beginning, as seeming competition to Karen. Then misspelling of Belial, which is Hebrew for 'worthless', and the name of a demon in Scripture. Some also point out the similarity to the word denial, which makes sense when this individual is revealed. Someone on an MZD forum back in 2001 once suggested that it was an anagram for "L'ideal", referring to the poem by Charles Baudelaire. Here is a LINK to different translations of the poem. The poem is from Baudelaire's collection, "Les Fleurs du mal".

The "L'ideal" interpretation seems most correct, considering note 23, and the reference to the fake work "Jennifer Caps' Delial, Beatrice, and Dulcinea (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Thumos Inc., 1996)". Delial is Davidson's muse, hauntress, and ideal, just as Beatrice was to Dante, and Dulcinea was to Don Quijote.

Albatross (pg 17) - another bird reference. It is sometimes used metaphorically to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse. Alludes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

This poem, and throw-away reference to the albatross, seem significant, because of this:

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Wealton mentions the poem by name and says of an upcoming journey that "I shall kill no albatross". Coleridge and Shelley were close acquaintances, as well.

Charles Baudelaire's collection of poems "Les Fleurs du mal" also contains poem called "L'Albatros", about men on ships who catch the albatrosses for sport.

SOURCE

"... the house itself, an indefinite shimmer, sitting quietly on the corner of Succoth and Ash Tree Lane, bathed in afternoon light." (pg 18). Succoth: Genesis 33:17, Jacob builds a house at Succoth after his estrangement from Esau. Exodus 12:37 and 13:20, Israel's first camp out of Egypt.

Succoth word meaning: Boothes, to weave protection, weaving.

Succoth is also another name for the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Booths, where Jewish people stay in temporary dwellings, specifically made out of branches with a roof of leaves, reflecting their wandering and the impermanence of their dwellings.

Impermanence (Succoth) vs Permanence (Ash Tree). Exile. Estrangement.

Not to jump ahead, but Chapter 3 begins with a quote from Exodus.

Selah.

[tweexcore-undrgrnd]

um not to alarm anyone or anything but I did just have a near divine experience at a local show (again) but seriously this time . there was something so. !!???????! and maybe it had to do with the fact I was wearing corpse paint and coming out of a bit where I was struggling to talk but FUCK . I FELT THAT SHIT IN MY BONES.

first band were who I was most excited to see, Vibrator. super fucking cool, especially the power behind the vocals?? just wow. the bassist was crazy good too.

the drummer was my favourite he was so epic and I've never been so stunned by drumming like that- seriously he just kept going and going faster and crazier it was insane. had to pick my jaw up off the floor a couple times.

second band stonefish,,,,waowwwwwww,,,, this is the first one I really got sweaty and danced around for, the singer was quite funny and got everyone pumped towards the end to start slamming and doing a very rough mosh to their song gay. which is very good.

and last up was datura ! their drummer was playing with stonefish (who was very nice I briefly said hi to him) too and gawd. it was so good. he literally broke his cymbal that's how much he was playing I guess 😭. I was a little late to the start of the set but just in time to get my shit WRECKED and hear some of the most brain melting guitar sequences evr. I'm not sure what it was but the vocalist had this pedal on his guitar that made such a nice noise it itched something in my brain. also they'd let these absolutely deafening noises out sometimes just Because and as much as it totally fried me I loved it!!!!!!!!!augh!!!

the mosh was very sporadic and disorganised! and since there weren't many people in a small room a lot of people just went flying - me included! I got absolutely knocked on my ass by someone and it was really fun tbh. (I sorta wish I was taller and more bulky so I could withstand more force though that would always be nice)

I got a pick from someone (probably stonefish or datura) and also the vocalist in the gif signed my little gig book :3 he wrote "LOVE THE CORPSE PAINT"

anyway that was a crazy good gig I love the spirit of all the weird and kind people who show up to these things <3 literally went for kebab with some dude we met after this ?? insane night. GOODNIGHT. or not I didn't take my meds (whups) so more under da cut

forced myself to take da pill so while it kicks in I will show you my stuff from tonit:3

it's all patchy and cracked in the second one because I. simply could not have predicted or planned for how much I sweat. cut me some slack. ALSO it was a "Frankenstein themed" night hence the stitches in my makeup :P the gig poster was all monster and franken since its on the bday of Mary Shelley!

ok I'm sleeby enough now I'm going to think about phone operators and airport naps goodnight

[maroonghoul]

Terror Time 2023: Days 29 thru 31

Let me wrap this up.

Shaun of the Dead I feel like there's nothing left for me to add to this. Everyone and their mother have already analyzed every frame of this movie already. Edgar Wright's style of direction practically invites it, given how much it works to keep your attention.

Zombie movies do hit a bit different after these past few years, especially this one, given how the characters are so quick to think it'll all "blow over". Shaun at least tried to do things properly, even though he both overestimated what he thought counts as safe enough and was severely let down by certain members of his party (David moreso then Ed. Like, Ed actually came off a bit less of an ass this time watching). And now he and Liz live in a world that in a world trying hard to be post-infection while in denial of how much it's still in the shadow of it.

Yeah, this movie definitely holds up after Covid.

Cobweb *Spoilers* This movie started like a bit more down to earth People Under The Stairs, but it's third act veered straight into Malignant and Barbarian territory. I went in this one as cold as possible, but I still guess where it was sorta heading.

It's a bit interesting we're still getting the "deformed baby grows up to be horror villain" cliche. I'm at the point where I'm less confused over how A led to B (it was abandonment and growing up feral that did it this time), so much as when was the last time period where something like this was an actual concern? Early 20th century? I need the history of this trope now for some reason.

I guess the moral is, cycles of abuse make both the abuser and abused into horrible people. Sometimes, better flight then fight.

Bride of Frankenstein Gotta end with a classic. Also, another movie that's been analyzed to death. This one closer to the novel in some parts (Blind Hermit, Monster wanting a mate, learning to speak, then commit suicide at the end), but it's still very different. (Pretorious. He was worth it.). Hell it's practically a mirror image of the first movie; starting at the windmill with the final act being about making another monster. ("It's like poetry. It rhymes!")

Frankenstein's practically a supporting character in this now. He regressed in his character arc a bit then he was forced to retread his old ways until he can escaped. Seemed to be a way to excuse him after what he did in the first movie. I don't buy it. What happened to his father and Victor?

How long did the Creature even lived, if we assumed he died at the end of this? A week? A whole week and only one eight hour period was actually pleasant. Heartbreakingly so.

And of course, the ending plays like a what if scenario compared to how it played in the book. But I can buy it as something Mary Shelley would approve of. On one hand, maybe they shouldn't have put too much effort into the Bride as compared to her would-be groom. Give her some lessons, she could almost pass. It's a shame we never got one of the classic films do more with the Bride. Yeah, the loneliness is the point of the monster. But his characterization sorta went down as these films went on anyway. Hell, in the final movie, he was practically a diabolus ex machina. It's just sad that this character's lack of agency (except in one instinctual moment) is the only significant thing about her. That said, it's telling when the Creature realized he was kinda following in his father's footsteps (forcing his will on a being he was responsible for and getting backlash), he chose to end it all rather then double down. In a way, that makes him the most human of the Universal monsters. Though I might have to revisit the Wolf Man to confirm that.

Even so, these two films are still a good example of a lousy adaptation in detail, but not at all in spirit. They retain the point Shelley was trying to make; most men prefer seeking glory over responsibility, even though most times the latter follows the former. The masses really don't like what they don't understand, real or otherwise and most won't stop after they started.

Also, the importance of child support and safety nets.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween, everybody!

[ao3feed-liushen]

misery made me a fiend

read it on the AO3 here

by Unfaithomable

“Your quarrel wasn’t with him,” Shen Jiu spits, trying and failing to keep the pain from seeping into his voice. “You monster, you—”

The monster tuts. “I have a name, you know.”

Words: 2311, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: M/M

Characters: Original Shěn Qīngqiū, Original Luò Bīnghé, Luò Bīnghé, mentioned Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū - Character, mentioned Yuè Qīngyuán

Relationships: Original Luò Bīnghé & Original Shěn Qīngqiū, Original Shěn Qīngqiū & Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū, Original Shěn Qīngqiū/Yuè Qīngyuán, Mentioned Liu Qingge/Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu

Additional Tags: Halloween, Alternate Universe - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Inspired by Frankenstein, Gore, Character Death, Sad Ending, I mean sorta ambiguous but also no, Angst, Guilt

read it on the AO3 here

[hypo-critic-al]

Creature spending some time in nature, when he still could see the beauty and peace in it

[corvidiss]

Anyone else notice how from the moment when Victor comes on board in Walton’s letters at the beginning of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley starts using language related to reanimation?

Cos

Yeah

I keep thinking about this and it makes me happy

[between-the-alchemist-and-god]

Dictionary: victor (noun) - a person who defeats an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition

Mary Shelley: *maniacal laughter*