#damn this book sexy

[nnothingnesss]

The Gambler (Short Story)

Yusuf reminisces on the loss of his family as a result of his gambling addiction after he secures his first $100k jackpot.

Like an unrecognizable lantern leading my way with no light, it's flame dimmed and deadened out, I walk into the room of shadows as they crowd the walls, the floor and ceilings in darkness. I plea that you consider your Gods, your faith, or your path because for me to be here in this empty room, means I've betrayed them all. I feel as though the deep red blood of my family dressed my sacrilegious hands. To be here, in this room, it felt as though I kneeled and laid my head on a cold chopping block, closing my eyes, waiting for the blade to fall in deliverance but it never comes. And so, I stew in these sour grapes for eternity with a gaping hole where my family had once been.

It wasn't cold but I still felt a shiver trickle down the bone of my spine. I expected things to go differently, and for that, I paid the price. These family taxes were beginning to take a toll on me, the late fee's began to add up, and today was collection. Repossession. This was a cruel reminder of my unpaid debts. I hadn't shown up to this house in two weeks and now it lied empty and bare. Quiet and desolate. The thriving family home, this once warm and comfortable corner of the world, has become nothing but an empty black box devoid of matter.

The couches and sofa, our desks and chairs. All the remaining furniture was covered in a grey and crinkly tarp as if to hide holy impurities from the eyes. As if what was once pure were now carrying an innocent deadliness to them, the tarp meant to suffocate the tears. The endless laughter that used to storm the room, the many nights we spent as a family sharing dinner in front of the TV re-watching the same shows our kids loved. Me and my wife, our skin becoming one. Our love rivaled that of a spiritual fascination with the moon or mysticism. I've changed since then, but I haven't died. Nirvana was a dream. A place I could never go.

My JanSport bag falls on the ground with a thud. My knees follow. To be here was to face the irony of a Shakespeare play, the mockery of any who gossiped infinitely. To be here was to fight the very cells within my body from swelling to the eyes and falling like rainwater, to swim against the floods. To be here was to relive every good memory I've ever had, then to recall the descent into entropy, the loss of my family, and ultimately the loss of identity I clung to before I stepped through that door. All my worst fears and paranoia danced with reality, to shame me, laugh at me, ridicule me, and tell me no balloon can dance amongst sharp objects. "Sooner or later, you must know, it will pop." And it did. Reality popped like corn in the oven and every individual kernel was me telling myself there was no way this could be real. But it was.

On the amber marble of the kitchen counter laid a note. It was from my wife. The night before I left she told me she wanted a divorce. Our life had been anything but a positive affirmation. It had been anything but a excitable increase of joy and laughter. Instead it was a stagnant and static cool jet grey but not the kind that makes you think "well, that looks very sharp and stylish." It was the bland and intrepid grey, the kind that screamed dangerously boring. Our love was nothing but cinders and ash, soot on the sand of any beach where water can extinguish it. But it was necessary. It had been a placeholder for our kids. They didn't have parents but they had a mom and they had a dad. We slept in the same bed, ate at the same table, and sat on the same sofa with Barney and Millie but it always felt we existed in separate rooms. I could see the absent look in her eyes pour hot iron into my soul. But then it cooled and became unrelenting metal. And now, she and the kids were gone. And here, I shall bear the weight of my inaction.

Underneath the note laid a long pile of unpaid bills she had left for me. It's the reason she left, it's the weight she had now no longer carried due to my whims and fancies. It had never been my intention to twist her legs or arms into submission for so long, never in a million lifetimes. But it became natural. Her tired body now running away carrying our clueless children on her broken back. A scar on our family they'll undoubtedly grow curious of as they contemplate their confusing origins. How I stood at the bottom of a well digging my grave attempting to coerce them down the hole. As I looked up at them, surrounded by the rocks of piling payments dipped in shadows. The closer I got to the jackpot, the more questions and uncertainties they were given. My gift to them. Until they turned away to disappear.

Evil collectors came to nestle into the home of my heart and mind as I dug, the heart of a once family man. A man of no solid confidence can hold his woman and children in earnest. No young child could understand the absence. No man who can dig this deep could promise his family stars in a black sky. The paper bill was an iron bar full of account numbers and dollar signs marked by absurd debts well into the many unaffordable thousands. As I look at these papers, cruel reminders that no other option could be as viable. I teemed in fury at how it still felt that way, even more now I had nothing left to lose. How much could I spend before I won my freedom?

A few years after Barney started middle school, his condition worsened. He required at-home

medical attention, nurse's came and went occasionally to check his condition, monotone monitors beeped, wheelchairs. The sad and expressionless face of my child laid peacefully paralyzed on a pillow in a forsaken slumber. In his own car-shaped twin-sized bed.

Me and my wife questioned reality and couldn't help but still find a bit of resentment for all the higher powers that be. They alone were the ones capable of inflicting a horrid fate onto an innocent child. But his life was a light, a burst of redemption and pleasure to us. A geyser of holistic vibrations from an otherwise rocky, hard ground. In a world that never truly wanted to comprehend him, enjoy him, relish him like we did, we would love every reincarnation of him for all of time. We would do anything for our young ALS warrior, my son Barney.

One night, after me and my wife got into an argument over his worsening condition I met with a friend of mine at a downtown bar called Inez's. Me and him ordered wine and sat as I told him my predicament over fruits and cheeses.

"Y'know what you need Yusuf? You need to come by the casino. Sure it'll get your mind off things and hey, maybe you'll make a killin' and solve all your problems eh?"

"Think that could help me?"

"Yusuf, man, I've seen a guy walk out damn near a millionaire."

"That's loaded, no way it could be one of us," I swirl the port around before throwing my head back killing the glass.

"That's your problem Yusuf, every one in that casino walks in knowing it's spend money to make money. Every single one of us believes we could walk out a millionaire. Solve our problems."

"Everyone is in debt? Sounds ironic"

"Some are finding their own way to get out of debt. Others are there to play smart." Mikhael says.

"Doesn't sound like a good idea to me."

"Trust me, it's better than people give it credit for. Just don't go too crazy."

That first night I went to the casino I walked out with almost $2,000. Me and my wife kissed when I walked through the door as I spun her in my arms, the tenderness of her love and warmth of her cheeks as our heads pushed into one another's. I didn't go back to the casino for months. Until we could see Barney had slowly started slurring his speech. As Barney became increasingly more paralyzed I could feel my heart slowly turn from flesh to glass, creating a fragile man that was stuck in time. The entropy that slowly creeped up into our walls like conscious vines with ill-intentions. A desire to invade our house and minds with a creeping reality. Eventually Barney would be completely paralyzed, completely silent. We managed to keep morale in the house high because we knew it's important. But behind closed doors, me and my wife began unraveling. The sky was falling into a stirring purple. The bright blues were the news of yesterday and days before. Today and tomorrow we fall into the oranges and then purples of our family woes. When we stood in the black, me and my wife stood alone. She in the car with the kids. Me in this kitchen, alone, leaning defeatedly onto the cold amber marble as my life was going off in flashes.

Me and my wife argued more and more everyday. I began to go to the casino after each one. Me and Mikhail would have the same conversations, play the same games, roulette, blackjack, slots. Then we sat at the same bar, Inez's, and drank our losses away or celebrated the small wins we claimed. It was much more balanced than one would think as we became better and better at the games and strategy. As I began to become a better gambler, my family began to grow increasingly isolated from my presence. Soon days turned into weeks and time melted, I'd find myself getting to go to the casino even on a good night. My wife began to stop questioning my absence and our arguments over Barney being paralyzed, me being an awful example of parenthood, our lack of money and my lack of willpower to go get another job became a daily ritual.

"You're just lazy Yusuf." My wife shakes her head.

"Marianna, look at this." I pull out more money from my hands, not as much as my first haul but an easy extra $200.

"How much did you lose?"

"I lost nothing," today.

"You're that good huh? Must be proud of yourself."

"Marianna, I just want to help. I'm not going in there and wasting money. I'm playing smart."

"That's how it starts Yusuf, you're going to the casino almost every other day. Barney needs you here."

"I'm doing this for Barney Marianna."

"You're doing it because you don't want to sit and talk to me and be with the kids anymore."

"I do. I love to sit and talk with you. I love being with the kids. But you're right, we need more money."

"The debts are getting paid, we can't afford this new wheelchair Yusuf. You can't spend all our money now on hopes and dreams. You have to pick up a second job."

"Marianna," I fold the money into her hands. "Take this. I promise I'll get him that chair."

"Yusuf, no."

"It'll be okay,"

"Please stop acting like this."

"Marianna, it's alright."

"It's not."

"I promise."

She sighs and stands up to tend to Millie's sudden outburst of crying. She believed me at first and as time passed by I realized I couldn't convince her anymore. I started betting more. Barney's conditioned worsened. Me and my wife's relationship began evanescing into invisibility. And through all the stress and responsibility, my impulse control began to deteriorate until the blood on me could be smelled as soon as I walked through the door. A long night of gambling and drinking.

My attention is brought back to the JanSport bag I dropped earlier. In it lied shy of $100k. Two weeks ago, when my wife told me she wanted a divorce, I flipped out. It was the first and last outburst of mine and it was the most violent. I didn't mean to say such shallow and empty words. They weren't me, or my tongue, it felt as though I had been possessed by a hungry spirit that simply wanted to eat. I just wanted to gamble.

To me, it was more then just a escape. It had become a game. An art form. To know when to hold back, to know when to go all in. It required a methodical science that could be as sensitive as a newborn's attachment to their caregiver. I made lots of money since taking it seriously. There were long intervals in which I made more then I loss, and then there were seasons where I lost more then I made. It never took less then a couple hundreds or so to get back to my spot though. And so the vicious cycle continued.

After our argument the next week me and Mikhail went to the MGM in Vegas. He paid for my trip and everything. I told my wife I was visiting distant relatives. I'm still not sure she was convinced. He said there was a group of people out there who were pro's that he'd been chatting with over the internet. People he said he knew pretty well. We all hung out and got drinks in the bars and hung out there. A man and three women. All single. I had gone out of anger, not at my wife, but a general unhappiness with my own life. They were pro's and with me and Mikhail together we had a pretty decent sized team. We made a pool of our money and split it even and bet it all together. When we came back together and met in the room we danced and partied and drank the night away. We were halfway to a million.

Mikhail wasn't wrong. There were people who spent their money to lose, for some idea, a false and phantom idea that they'd make it big with just one play and get lucky. They couldn't have been more wrong. To play smart was to know it'd take a loss to make a win. It's because the path to winning was no different then the path to losing. It's how you spend, at the end of the day, that truly makes a gambler and a fraud.

I had made much more money gambling and forgetting my life at home then I did working any job being a family man. The fact I'd come home to a violent silence, a subtle distrust, a ailing family separated me. I placed all my earnings in their hands. I thought me making this kind of money would've been a good thing. So while in Vegas, I allowed myself to completely forget. I allowed myself to forget my loving wife and all of our best times together. The beautiful sex we'd have and kisses we'd share, the children, the home we worked so hard to buy and inhabit together. Not just as another place to sleep, but a safe haven, a family castle for our kids to grow up and become kings and queens of one day. Even Barney. I allowed myself to completely forget, an invisible lot in my mind, and I played the game.

I pull back the tarp to the living room sofa and sit on the white soft couch. It was in pristine condition. The many nights me and my family spent on this sofa almost brings me to tears but I swallow them down. I'd already been sentenced to death by hanging. I grab the JanSport bag from the floor and open it to look at all the cash. Looking at it should've made me happy. All the things I've done to find my own happiness, and I lost sight of the most important things I could be doing to be happy. I forgot it wasn't just my happiness on the line. I felt they were attacking my happiness. But it was only because they missed me. It was how I used to make my wife happy. My kids happy. My home happy. How could I have been so selfish for this long? Now that I've finally lost them, I don't feel relief. I feel a dozen swords pierced through my back.

I still loved my wife and my kids. I would never stop loving my wife and kids. But her note was no different then the bills that lied next to them. The difference is now, my bills could be paid. The tolls I incurred on my family, they were far too high for any man to afford. I peel the blue envelop back, opening it to a white folded sheet of paper. It didn't fully fit, the note being small, and our wedding ring tucked in the corner. It was worn on her soft finger for nearly a decade. Just holding it in my hands, I could feel my knees return to jelly, the drunk warmth of my body threatening to kill itself on the spot.

I bring the note in my jacket pocket and grab a single stack of bills. Value $10,000. I had never spent any of my gambling money on myself save for the occasional drink of port wine with ritualistic fruits and cheeses with Mikhail. He was at home enjoying his win of the pot with his family. I can't say I'm sure if he was having a good time now or not. He never really talked about his family with me. Our conversation was never personal, always advising. Always planning the next jackpot, always in search of our next win. I stand from the couch and drag my feet towards the amber marble table. I grab my keys and decide I'll go for a drink and celebrate myself, alone, for the first time at Inez's.

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

The Three Bears as told by Vincent Price on the Red Skelton Hour (1964)

[fanfoolishness]

[jessieren]

[forcebookcorner]

Force Jiratchapong and Book Kasidet for Dolce & Gabbana Milan Fashion Week (13.01.2024)

Original Photos:

Book's IG [X]

Force's IG [X] Twitter [X] [X]

Mint Magazine IG [X] Twitter [X]

Elle Men Thailand IG [X] Twitter [X]

[gojuo]

young coriolanus snow got to me yall

[starfallkaz]

Empire of the Vampire readers hear me out

Peter Steele (despite his controversies) would have been a perfect Gabriel De Leon fancast and I’m almost 100% convinced Jay thinks so too and that he took major inspo from Type O Negative’s discography in writing this series

Haunted

A living flame, impossible to resist Burning me deep with every bite, kiss and lick

I'm haunted

I'm haunted (by her)

Invades my sleep with tumescent intentions

From the panes a green mist swirls

Is it a shadow or reflection?

This apparition in moon beams bathed

A voice like wind through trees beckons

Nocturnal mistress, spirit lover

Your mouth of wine and woodsmoke taste

My goddess of the violet twilight

You are lust incarnate

In the sweat of my bed

The eastern sky hints of dawning

Alone and awake but exhausted I lie

Oh how I hate the morning

this is so Gabriel and Astrid visiting him in the night, wanting her to stay but being haunted by her presence

Love You to Death

Her salty sweat drips from her breast

Her hips move and I can feel what they're sayin', swayin' They say the beast inside of me is gonna get ya, get ya, yeah

[Verse 2]

Black lipstick stains her glass of red wine

l am your servant, may I light your cigarette?

Those lips move, yeah, I can feel what you're sayin', prayin'

reminds me of Gabriel and Astrid that first night they lay together

Suspended in Dusk

How can I possibly explain this eternal youth?

When I can do nothing but sit by

As my loves grow old and withered

And with each of them, take a fragment of my heart

And prolong this endless winter

It is October's perpetual agony

It is the shadow realm

Blood and Fire

Love eternal

Lust infernal

Bleeding, burning

Needing, yearning

Moi cherie

You remain

A mystery to me

Need I say more !!!

Anyways, I’m deep in the trenches of both Empire of the Vampire and the goth/doom metal genre rn, I’ll be back with more similarities soon probably

[stitchlingbelle]

Finally got around to picking up A Dowry of Blood and I devoured it in one sitting, it's fantastic.

...however, it's interesting to me how reading experiences can change over time. Because when it was first published, I would have laughed at that throwaway line about "the Harkers, some insufferable Victorians"

but post- Dracula Daily I'm instantly like "How DARE you insult my good friend Jonathan and his incredible train-obsessed wife!"

[edwardshundredyearoldspunk]

we should start treating the tags as footnotes¹ and as all footnotes they should be used to rant² and it forces people to go back to the original post³ how sexy is that?⁴ or someone could take a screenshot of your foottags and it would be like fuck you⁵ I'm not going to your damn blog⁶

[flustersluts]

omg im also in spain and want you to fuck me thats 2v1 you gotta come over we outnumber you also i speak three languages too lets make this even more international

damn ok fine a bitch knows when they're defeated..... 3 sluts 8 languages 1 night of passionate sex... how cld i say no

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Bringing this back

Vincent Price as Joseph Curwen

The Haunted Palace (1963) // dir. Roger Corman

[macroglossus]

🤨

[thewhizzyhead]

mean girls musical movie soundtrack review and score from 0-10 coming up next on this account

[thethera-rossa]

[fallloverfic]

Carlton/Karlton Javier (manhwa) appreciation post

Did I just finally get up to date with the manhwa for singnsong's The World After the Fall in part because of my love for Carlton Javier? Yes. Yes I did. (I mean also for ORV crumbs but Carlton got me through the rest). The K version of the name comes from the novel, but I'm using the webtoon spelling, which uses C. Spoilers for the novel and manhwa below. (Also this is focused on Jaehwan/Carlton as well :D)

The moment you know your ship is technically canon. Like damn the way he just... grabs Jaehwan's hand. Also Carlton is so much taller than he is alkdjladja. Jaehwan just lets any man grab his hand so long as they have bondage magic and are half-angel I guess (very valid of him).

When you walk into the club happy your husband is there for you after he blew holes in the roof to make you stop by.

This panel is just beautiful.

Fallen (half-)angel.

Poor Carlton, still working for your husband, slaving away at the desk. Chibi Carlton kills me. Jaehwan reassuring Carlton about his unique world just ends me T-T It's nice to know that Carlton is training like the others!

Baby got an outfit upgrade (looks more like Jaehwan too alkdjlaj when you're in love and match your outfits to each other alkdjlaj) and followed his husband to the Abyss after all. I love him. His finally being recovered and coming back to fight at Jaehwan's side just ahhh T-T

Goodness is he cute. And he's almost always next to Jaehwan in this arc T-T As is kind of explained later, Jaehwan demanded that Carlton (and Cheongeo) be let into the Factory with him, which is amazing. I just love that he values the guy so much??? Jaehwan canonically wants Carlton (and Siren, Cheongeo, and Caiman) at his side.

Also legitimately curious why they gave him pointed ears, which he's specifically not supposed to have. I'm slowly working my way through the novel, and yeah I guess making him shine silver all the time would be kind of difficult, but it's a very strange change, since the final version is so specifically the opposite of how he's supposed to look (both the original and the edited version of the novel note he specifically doesn't have pointed ears). I'm not mad about it or anything, just curious.

Baby looking hot and worried for his husband T-T

Carlton going to Jaehwan's side (along with Siren and Cheongeo) and not doubting him when so many others were doubting him, and then supporting him, and Jaehwan leaning on him and I just hnnnnnnn. Ride or die.

Their height difference just makes me laugh aldkjaldja Jaehwan is not short or small alkdjaldja (I mean he's described as frail at one point, but that doesn't explain this alkdjlaj) Carlton is just larger alkdjaldaj But also they're standing side by side T-T

I just alkdjaldaj He's about a head shorter than Carlton alkdjalj this is so funny aldkjaldja I think it's something about the Very Long Legs that makes it more comically silly? It's like xxxHolic but as a shounen. I'm not necessarily against it, it's just kind of funny.

Everyone Jaehwan wanted to go with him. WANTED CARLTON TO GO WITH HIM. WANTED. (Yes, Siren and Cheongeo are in the shot and of course Jaehwan pines for Caiman, but still). Jaehwan wanted him there T-T For someone who spends a lot of time being mad that Carlton is a law enforce and that Jaehwan can't stand him for that, and Jaehwan would rather fight the guy instead, that's character development.

And of course I got more of him do u think me a fool.

Can't upload the other images cause tumblr image limit. I might make a second post of them.

The revised webnovel is on Munpia in Korean. And Carlton's introduction is included in the free chapters. Enjoy.

[lilgynt]

me after saying guess i still got it when someone’s blantently interested in me despite the fact i have never not had it and this is a pretty common scenario/ problem