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missanthropicprinciple · 3 years

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A Tale of Elio and My Fixation with Lovable Androids

TL;DR Feel free to scroll past this unless you’re keen to read my ramblings about androids, Neoclassical art, children’s lit, and bad science fiction movies.

Since the late 1990s one of my favourite books has been A Tale of Time City (1989) by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a mildly confusing story but engaging, with memorable characters, including the android Elio, pictured above - my own fan art from a few years ago. Studio Ghibli really needs to make this film if no one does a live-action version, seeing as they brought Jones’ novel Howl’s Moving Castle to life. Here’s a scan of my favourite edition with mesmerizing cover art by Richard Bober.

This book inspired me so much I’ve done research on it. I wasn’t in a class in grad school that allowed me to write about it so I took it on as a casual independent project in 2019. Two days after my dad died of cancer I was scheduled to present my paper on Elio from ATOTC. Needless to say I was not able to finish writing the essay. I told the department coordinator I would likely not attend but I would let him know. He was seriously surprised that I showed up. I must have looked like a ghost - wearing a nice top, skirt, tights, and short heels. I was still in total shock but I thought I might as well press on. My paper’s working tile remains as it was: Elio: Android Autonomy and the Personification of the Sun God. I presented a long bullet point list of working ideas and research done up until that point. My work is still on the broad side because it’s an intersection of young adult fiction, Neoclassic art, and android autonomy; I have some narrowing to do. Here are my main arguments thus far:

Firstly, the android character Elio’s physical characteristics and personality are inspired by Helios, the Hellenistic Greek god and personification of the sun. Apparently, Elio is a Spanish name meaning sun and also an Italian given name referring to the element helium, originally derived from the Greek name of the sun-god Helios.

Secondly, Elio and Helios share more than an etymological connection and the comparison of Elio to Helios can be articulated in two distinct ways: the aesthetic comparison, and that Elio possesses some of the qualities Helios is known for. Jones’ work repeatedly associates Elio with sunlight and golden hues, aspects which are exemplified in the 1765 Neoclassical painting Helios as the Personification of Midday by Anton Raphael Mengs. (I vaguely remember translating a couple passages from a large art book written in German when I was studying Neoclassical art.)

This work is considered an unusual depiction of Helios. Mengs uses a motif of the glowing arrow which is interpreted by François-Xavier Fabre as a symbol of the midday heat and the sun's rays which penetrate and give light to the earth. The representation of the sun in this way is considered unusual for the 18th century because it goes against Classical and Baroque iconography which portrays Helios riding a chariot. Ironically, Jones references this. Elio proclaims his fondness for films, particularly the chariot race from Ben Hur. Elio, like Mengs’ depiction of Helios, lacks a chariot but retains his beauty and powers.

As for Elio possessing some of the qualities of Helios, the god is often referred to as “all seeing” or “Zeus’s eye.” Similarly, Elio has the ability to anticipate problems and see what humans do not, but not because he’s a god, but because he’s a servant. However, this is where his self governing comes into play when he uses his observations to take action beyond any directives he has been given. His physical strength, like Helios, exceeds that of humans. Elio himself says, “my utmost is more than twice that of a born-human” (Jones, 211).

Thirdly, Elio’s self awareness allows him to use both his powers of observation and superior physical strength independent from humans. He does not always wait to be told how to use his power; he wields it. Not only does he play a part equal to that of humans in Jones’ plot, he specifically controls the fates of certain human characters. For example, he doesn’t always utilize his speed when he’s at the beck and call of his master, Sempitern. He makes choices not to fully comply with the demands made of him.

My fourth point, which I can’t quite articulate well, is that the most significant dynamic of this comparison is the body of Elio and how his physicality interacts with his autonomy. Elio acts as an individual who contributes to a wider mythology just as Helios does. Yet, while Elio is superior to humans in many ways, his quasi-humanity allows him to act in ways which align with Helios’ qualities.

For example, Elio makes personal choices and exhibits emotions not necessary for him, as an android, to function. He confesses a desire to harm another android out of annoyance where a passionate opinion would not be expected from an android. This human failing is indicative of the same autonomy which allows him to act as Helios does. Elio has been constructed as a superhuman body in terms of his abilities, however, the human qualities which contribute to his Helios-like powers undermine his intended purpose.

Ultimately, Elio ascends the usefulness of his “owned” body by acting independently from the humans who utilize him. His human qualities make him vulnerable and therefore he loses some of his godlike powers. Elio, while only an assistant to his human owners, utilizes his own physical and mental powers to maintain his autonomy. Conversely, his god-like qualities make Elio more human rather than affirming his android identity.

This is a very complex subject and I don’t really know where I’m going with it and have possibly made some suppositional errors. TL;DR: What I do know is that Elio presents a paradox: being idealized for his abilities allows him to be autonomous while being autonomous disrupts the servitude of his body.

I am in the process of determining what lens I will use to analyze Elio’s experience and functionality of being an android. I’m thinking about using Alan Turning’s 1950 work Computing Machinery and Intelligence. I’m still navigating the literary theory aspect, or indeed philosophical aspect, of this area of study.

This brings me to something I came across later that relates to Elio and ATOTC.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The closest depiction of an android that I’ve seen to Elio other than Data is from a terrible and somewhat forgotten science fiction film from 1989. “Byron”, (played by pre-Jurassic Park-fame Bob Peck) the android in the painfully awful film Slipstream comes very close to Elio in terms of tone, attitude, and characterization. Despite the embarrassingly bad script and dialogue, Peck does a bang-up job, seemingly acting in a wonderful film running parallel to the absolute trash his co-stars were apparently “acting” in. Yes, I rewatched this film just to write this analysis. (The secondhand embarrassment is off the charts and I had it playing at a low volume most of the time Byron was not on the screen.)

When you first see Byron he’s acting out autonomy but you’re not aware he’s an android. The audience is told he’s an escaped fugitive, a murderer, and that’s all we know for over half the film. Yet there are several clues. When you first see him he’s running over rugged terrain in a suit which was kind of a big hint but nothing makes sense in this film so I just thought that it was a weird costume choice. Then he’s literally shot with a grappling hook. He doesn’t seem to be in pain even though he’s shocked by it, and then is pulled down by a bounty hunter named Tasker (Mark Hamill) and hits the ground from a great height and doesn’t die. He just quotes what I think is John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s "High Flight”: “I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth….and touched the face of God.” Next time you see him, he’s in handcuffs, looking super depressed, and apparently not bleeding out from the now absent grapple hook that’s gone through his forearm.

He eventually quotes Lord Byron to cryptically indicate his name which is lost on Bill Paxton’s character, Matt. “Byron” essentially means cowshed. It’s ironic because Byron the android is in many ways a receptacle of knowledge. Matt even says sarcastically, “Well aren’t you a walking storeroom of information,” and Byron responds cheerfully, “Yes.”

Byron breaks out of his handcuffs saying they’d “become rather superfluous.” You think he’s just showing off but once you know he’s an android you know he’s just honest all the time. He then heals a blind child and paraphrases Psalm 127:3. Matt says, “I didn’t know you were a healer.” Apparently Byron can perform cataract surgery in less than five minutes. Along their journey together (Bill is set on collecting the bounty on Byron’s head before Tasker can catch up) they camp out. Byron sleeps with his eyes open. (Even if he is an android wouldn’t his eyes need to be “cleaned” in the same way humans need to close our eyes and blink?) Matt wakes up to find Byron seemingly strangling him. “I was feeling your carotid pulse,” he explains. “I was just checking for arrhythmia and episodes of ventricular tachycardia.” At this point you realize he’s not so much a spiritual healer as a doctor who philosophizes a lot.

Byron’s miraculous behavior and pontificating is called into question by a nomadic spiritual community which has been torn apart by an attack on their village. As he lays dying, Ben Kingsley’s character calls Byron a “false prophet” but his faith in this stranger is somewhat restored when he says, “all that will be left of me is bits of gold in the sand. You have a soul, do not abandon it in death.”

Another character says, “The stranger is no mortal man.” Therefore it is clear that Byron likely isn’t human. We don’t find out he’s an android until 46 minutes into the film. Once that’s cleared up, other concepts arise in the script. While not well executed, they are really interesting; emotion both positive and negative, free will, perfection, A.I. slavery, and murder are all addressed throughout the second half of the film. Byron says he doesn’t understand “hate” in context of his “master” to whom he was nurse, brother, father, mentor, and friend, but he admits he was more of a slave than anything else.

The character Ariel takes an interest in him for a variety of reasons, especially romantically. In one very evocative moment we see Byron in a museum exhibit, a false garden of Eden, full of fake vegetation and taxidermies, full body mounts. So we’ve got an android having an Adam experience. Whether or not he experiences “original sin” with Ariel or if he’s “fully functional” is never acknowledged. Although one woman says, “Amanda slept with a robot?!” (who the f**k is Amanda?!) and a man says to another sitting next to him, “I hear they’re rather mechanical in the saddle.”

Byron is less concerned with consummation and more excited about love, sleep, and dreaming. When he is with Ariel he doesn’t quite know how to act in terms of sexual play and then apologizes: “I’m not accustomed to being loved.” We see him closing his eyes when he’s cuddled up with Ariel; the next day he is certainly very pleased that he fell asleep with his eyes closed and had a dream.

In terms of his servitude and autonomy they did not spend an adequate portion of the exposition on it. Matt has a change of heart and says instead of collecting the bounty, he’ll set him free as it’s briefly revealed that Byron killed his “master” upon the man’s request. Naturally, this brings up a lot of confusing feelings for Byron. “Is this what it’s like to be human? I don’t think I’m up to it,” he says. “Can I be trusted with human feelings?” And in a way he cannot. Ariel is brutally shot by Tasker.

Byron is angered over Ariel’s death and follows the bounty hunter to his ship. Instead of taking him in to collect a reward, Tasker tries to run him down with the glider plane. Byron manages to get himself caught in the engine and starts to strangle his assailant. Tasker quotes “touched the face of god” which brings Byron to his senses and he stops killing Luke Skywalker Tasker and tries to save the plane. It looks like he’s going to hot-wire it but then uses the wires like reins (chariot imagery???). They crash into the side of a mountain slope. Tasker dies but Byron survives. Apparently he’s basically indestructible and somewhat godlike. “I’m too dangerous to be human,” Byron tells Matt. In the end, he goes off in search of the place he’d been dreaming about.

Although in terms of physical appearance the two androids are vastly different, they have so much in common. Here are some basic concepts.

Character: Both are stoic, formal, intelligent, honest

Indestructible: Byron is injured with a grappling hook, takes a major fall of about 20 or 30 feet without a scratch: he is somewhat godlike or slave-like, meant to withstand destruction and pain. Elio is less indestructible but easily repaired.

Healer: Byron has the skills to heal people with basic surgery. Elio doesn’t take his own injuries seriously and experiences pain for the first time (Jones, 218-9).

Both think they deserve to be punished: Elio states this quite clearly (Jones, 276) and Byron says the same thing about himself with resigned passivity.

Complex relationship with “human emotions”: Both come to terms with violence, anger, and love.

Autonomy: At the end of the film Byron goes off on his own to look for a promised land. Elio decides his own fate by deciding to accompany the children of the story, stating that Vivian is a “particular favorite” of his (278).

Dreaming and stories: Byron is searching for a place, “where I think I belong,” he says, which is a place he often thinks and dreams about. Dreaming is considered to be a human attribute, a non-essential bi-product to consciousness. Elio enjoys stories and old films (Jones, 180), similarly “human” in nature.

(Peck, seen here waiting for Bill Paxton to learn how to act. Sorry, I’m salty.)

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress! This project is an intersection of niche subjects that interest no one but myself.

Anyway, my point is (yes, I did have a point...or rather several) was that if anyone should adapt A Tale of Time City, Byron from Slipstream is the best example of how Elio should be portrayed in terms of characterization. I feel that Slipstream should have been centered around Byron. The film was kind of like, just about the “we’re both fighting over the bounty of this fugitive” sorta thing. It would have made more sense to focus on Byron as he is arguably the most interesting character and represents many of the conflicts within the story. I would like to combine my research on ATOTC and Slipstream one day. In any case, this is a good start.

Works Cited (WIP)

Jones, Diana W. A Tale of Time City: Knopf, 1987. Print. Perkowitz, Sidney. Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids. Washington, D.C: Joseph Henry Press, 2004. Print.

Roettgen, Steffi, and Anton R. Mengs. Anton Raphael Mengs: 1728-1779 Part 2. München: Hirmer, 1999. Print.

Turing, A. M. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind, vol. 59, no. 236, 1950, pp. 433–460. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2251299. Wilson, Eric. The Melancholy Android: On the Psychology of Sacred Machines. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Print

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bad-at-names-and-faces · 4 years

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The One with the Wind and Sky

chapter 32

chapter index

It was Tuesday morning. Despite the sun, Inga felt a sharp chill in the air as she opened her window. She shivered a bit as she washed and changed into a dress appropriate for the weather. After dressing, she took a deep breath, left her room, and walked to the study.

“Inga!” Frederick greeted her cheerfully. “Are you helping today?”

“Inga?” her mother asked in confusion.

“Yes, I thought you might like some extra help.”

“Well, thank you,” her mother replied, handing her a stack of letters.

Frederick gave her a sideways glance, which she pretended to ignore. They got through everything very quickly, with no conversation aside from the occasional discussion of who should get a particular letter.

“That’s everything for now, I think,” their mother told them when it wasn’t quite lunch time, “Can you come to the meeting with Corona this afternoon? Your father will be at the trade guild meeting.”

“Do we get a choice of meeting?” Frederick laughed. “The trade guilds usually serve better food.”

The Queen glared at him. “Not today.”

“I’ll be there,” Inga piped in.

Frederick nodded and got up, mumbling something about finding Anton and Peder for a ride, and letting the door slam after him.

Inga remained sitting across the desk from her mother. She didn’t want to be rude and run out with barely a comment like her brother had just done. He could get away with that, but she couldn’t, not today, at least. She needed to prove that she wasn’t still upset.

“I didn’t mean to pry yesterday,” her mother told her. “I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me.”

Talking with her mother was exactly what Inga wasn’t ready to do. Perhaps later. She nodded and maintained eye contact, doing her best to stay calm and composed.

“You don’t have to come to the meeting this afternoon, you know.”

“I’d rather come, but thank you,” Inga said as she stood up, doing her best to hide any hint of emotion. “I’ll see you in two hours.”

***

“You’re up early,” Hilde commented as she sat down by her brother, who was staring out the window of the breakfast room. His food was untouched.

“Am I? The sun rises so early here, you know.”

“That’s in the summer,” she corrected, “Sunrise is a half hour later here than in Corona now. I checked the almanac before we left.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes, then looked around the room to confirm that they were alone. “Now, since you’ve dragged me along on this trip over a month earlier than planned, will you let me know if there's anything going on? My maid keeps asking me questions.”

Henry flushed. “What? You haven’t… have you been telling her? I mean, what have you been telling her exactly?”

“Relax, I just ask her enough questions to get an idea of the general gossip. I swear I haven’t been the source of anything, why would I want to do that? Besides, she only asks me about you because your valet never tells her anything interesting. I have better things to do. But... Do you know what they’re saying about you today?”

“Today? Were they saying things before?”

“Nothing any of us do is really private, you know that, don’t you? Of course they were talking. To be fair, I’ve never heard any interesting gossip about you except for the morning after the coronation ball. They talk about me, too, though apparently the only interesting thing about me is my clothing, so I give them that. And they talk about her…” Henry looked up wide eyed.

“Fine, tell me.”

“It seems, when you went missing for a little while after we first arrived, you met up with a girl in the marketplace. My maid told me she saw this herself."

“Oh,” he mumbled, “I guess I forgot that there were people around.”

Hilde raised her eyebrow. "So, she saw something? Because some staff here heard the same whispers in the marketplace, about the foreign prince flirting with the first girl he met. As usual, your valet has nothing interesting to tell about you."

“I was in the market yesterday, and I suppose it could be called flirting.”

“That’s an odd answer, especially given last night at dinner...”

“You already talked to me about that.”

“And I would have talked to you more if I’d heard about what happened in the market!”

“Fine, you’re going to tell me I’m exposing her to gossip, I get it.”

“So Inga was in the market? You could have said so when I asked and saved me a lot of trouble.”

“Oh, I thought that was what they were saying.”

“No, actually, so now half of Arendelle thinks you’re a terrible flirt. Nevermind that, are you going to tell me what’s going on with you two?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she not interested, then?”

“That would make things simple.”

“You sure are cryptic this morning.”

“If there’s something to share, you’ll be the first to know.”

“You promise?”

“On second thought, no.”

***

Inga arrived at the room for the meeting a few minutes early, and saw Frederick arriving as she got to the door.

“How was your ride?”

“Good. Did you have lunch? You hardly ate last night.”

“I ate,” she replied, leaving out that she had only grabbed a piece of toast with a bit of jam.

“Oh,” Frederick interrupted before she needed to think of something else to say, “I ran into Elizabeth on my way here. She says Lars isn’t feeling well, so I guess he won’t be at the meeting this afternoon.”

“That’s too bad.” Inga forced herself to stay calm. She remembered the encounter with Lars that weekend, and what she’d learned about him. Had Lars become too curious? “Did she say anything else?”

“No,” Frederick replied, smirking a little, “but I guess if it was something in the food, you’re safe.”

Inga sighed, remembering that Margit Nilsen had seemed uneasy yesterday. Perhaps she would take her up on the offer of talking later. “Is anyone inside yet?” she asked Frederick to change the subject.

“Pretty much everyone else from Corona,” he told her. “Do you want to head on in?”

“Let’s go,” she said, breathing to calm herself.

Everyone in the room stood when she entered. She caught Hilde’s gaze first, then looked over to Henry, who looked back, blinking. Was he nervous? There was nothing they needed to say to each other this afternoon, which was good, because there was nothing she would want to say in front of other people.

Their mother arrived soon after, and the meeting began. Inga sat quietly, gazing at the books on the shelves immediately behind whoever was speaking at the moment. She kept count of the times her eyes accidentally met Henry’s: six.

At one point, an official letter from Corona was passed around. She read it over, trying not to let herself be distracted by the differences between the King’s handwriting and his grandson’s. She wondered whether the King knew any details about why this shuffle of diplomatic personnel was happening, or was simply signing off on instructions from his daughter the Crown Princess.

At some point, Ambassador Meyer had mentioned that he would make a decision about which of the three men he would hire by the end of the week. No one was quite sure when Arendelle would have a location selected for a new consulate, and Inga felt almost ready to flip the table in spite of protocol when they realized that their questions were best discussed with Lars in person.

The business for the day was concluded. Everyone got up. Inga simply stood by her seat, unable to decide where to go. There were no more meetings for the day, and nothing that needed to be done.

“Inga?” Frederick asked, pulling her back to the present.

“What?”

“I asked if you wanted to get dinner with us. I was going to take them to Hudson’s Hearth.”

She looked around. Her mother had left, as had Ambassador Meyer. Kai was directing a young servant to clean up the room and get the furniture back to a better arrangement. Henry and Hilde were standing behind Frederick, looking at her expectantly.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she replied, following behind as they left.

***

Wednesday morning wasn’t quite as cold as Tuesday morning had been, but there was still a slight chill in the air. Dinner had been frustratingly uneventful. Inga couldn’t help but notice that Henry had been nearly as silent as she was through most of it, and Frederick explained many details of Arendelle to Hilde.

But that was last night. Inga hadn’t made any promises about helping anyone today. She was awake and dressed so that she could possibly go riding later, feeling somewhat restless. She picked up the book on her bed stand, and the letter from Henry fell out. There was no point in writing back right now, was there? Except, yes, there could be a point. Did he know where the garden was? Well, he could figure that out. Having written a quick note which she stuck in her pocket, she went to her dresser, opened the top drawer, moved aside a few things, and placed Henry’s most recent letter on top of the other letters from him. She leafed through them idly, coming to the photograph at the bottom of the stack, picked it up, and looked at it. The formal portrait looked almost like a stranger, having all of his features, but none of the spark of seeing him in person. She still wasn’t sure what had come over her the other night. She couldn’t exactly say that she regretted her behavior, but at the same time, she wished she felt more in control of herself. As she looked at his picture, she wondered what Henry actually thought of the photo she’d sent him. His photo went back to the bottom of the stack of letters, and she carefully closed the drawer.

Inga quickly made her way down to the guest rooms, suddenly panicking when she realized she wasn’t sure which one was his. She really had no excuse for being here if someone asked. Suddenly, a nearby door opened, and Inga stood to the side.

“Of course, Your Highness,” she heard a lady’s maid saying as she closed the door. “Oh, excuse me, Miss,” the young woman gasped as she nearly bumped into Inga.

“Don’t worry about it,” Inga replied.

The maid nodded and went on her way. After a moment, Inga looked at the door the woman had come out of, and guessed that it was Hilde’s room. She decided she’d take the chance that the door next to it was Henry’s room, and slipped her note underneath, trying to head away quickly and quietly.

As she turned the corner, Inga stopped again as she heard a door opening, but the giggling and footsteps told her it was from the nursery. She turned around to see her sister Sofia running toward her.

“Where are you going?” Inga asked, trying to sound stern, barely hiding a laugh.

“Inga! Hi! We’re going out to the garden, but I forgot my sweater. Do you want to come?”

Inga nodded and followed along.

Nanny was already in the garden with the younger children. Marie was fussing over the baby, and their little brother Karl was off finding things to climb on. Inga sat down next to Marie and the baby, and tried her best to simply enjoy the moment in the autumn sunlight.

***

“Come down, Karl!” Sofia shouted, repeating Nanny’s admonishment from a moment earlier. Inga watched as her youngest brother found a way up the side of the wall, almost like a mountain goat. He giggled at every shout to come down, and climbed higher.

“I think that’s enough now,” Inga laughed as he started standing on the top of the wall. She climbed up to the top, realizing too late that she had no plan for getting back down. Still, she was glad she was up there with her baby brother, though he wasn’t quite a baby anymore, was he? The other side of the wall went straight down to the rocks below along the fjord. She scooted over next to little Karl, and grabbed him as he walked over to her. He settled into her lap, and she decided spending a few minutes looking at the view wouldn’t hurt. She could figure out the next step later.

Sofia had gone over to Marie and Baby Linne while Nanny ran off to find Kai. Marie was suggesting all sorts of games which weren’t quite appropriate for such a young baby, and Sofia was making slightly less awful suggestions. Inga didn’t want to turn around, since she’d have to start thinking about how high up they were, so she kept staring off in the distance, one arm tightly around her little brother, and the other gripping the edge of the wall behind her.

She heard some commotion behind her, and heard Anton and Peder shouting juvenile insults at each other. Peder shouted something especially crude, and there was a thud of bodies hitting each other, and Anton laughing. Letting out a sigh, Inga turned around as much as she felt she could safely do, spotting Anton standing near her sisters.

“Shouldn’t you be with your tutors?” she shouted. “If you have so much energy, come help us down here.”

“Sorry, Inga,” Anton shouted back, “I’m too busy laughing at Peder.”

“Laugh at him another time, help me out here!”

“Oh, fine. Peder, get up off the ground and make sure you didn’t actually hurt that fellow from Corona.”

Inga swallowed nervously, turning back around to out over the fjord. She was so focused on her siblings that she had forgotten about her note. She hadn’t given an exact time.

“Okay, Inga,” Anton called from down below, “I’ll climb up, take Karl, and then you climb down and I’ll hand him to you.”

“Sure, why not?” she laughed nervously. She wondered if leaving her room this morning had been a good idea.

She glanced quickly down behind her and saw Anton’s red hair. He quickly got to the top and sat beside her, facing back toward the castle. Karl giggled as he saw his brother, and Inga handed him over. She exhaled in relief, and started her way back down to the ground, thankful that she had dressed for riding, at least, so no one below would get a show.

As her feet touched the ground, she let go over the stones and tried to brush the dirt off, shaking the tunic, glad that it wasn’t a light color. She still needed to help with Karl, but now she wished Frederick were here, since he was the only one of them really tall enough for this task. Where was he this morning? Probably talking to the Admiral, if he wasn’t with the twins.

“Anton, please be safe, at least with Karl!” she called back up. Their little brother thought it was delightful being dangled down from the top of the wall. Inga caught his feet, and as Anton let go the little boy grabbed her around the neck, causing her to stumble.

She gave Karl a kiss on the cheek and set him down. Anton walked along the top of the wall until he could jump to the tree.

“You’re just giving him more ideas, you know!” Inga shouted.

“Oh, hello, Kai!” Peder shouted behind her. Inga turned around to see Nanny picking up the baby and scolding the sisters for playing whatever game they had been playing. She walked over to Nanny and took the baby off her hands so that she could chase after Karl before he got into more trouble.

As she held baby Linne, she realized that she hadn’t seen the baby nurse all morning, and was wondering when she would get back, since the smell was rather bad. Nanny was coming back with Karl, her hand gripping his wrist very firmly.

“Your Highness,” she heard Kai’s voice behind her, “do you need any help?”

“Yes, thank you, Kai, if you could,” she answered before turning around, “where is-”

Kai was standing a few feet behind her, but facing away, and had been speaking to Henry, who was sitting on the ground a short distance away. He looked over and smiled.

“Thank you, I’m fine,” Henry replied to Kai as he got up.

Kai nodded, and looked to Inga. “Your Highness?”

“Thank you, I’m fine,” she responded without thinking, her eyes locked on Henry.

Kai nodded and left.

“Were you here this whole time?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he began, “I got your note, and I came out to find you, and then, well, I didn’t say anything because you were up on the wall and I was afraid you might be startled…”

“So you were the one my brother ran into?” she laughed.

“Um, yes,” he mumbled, looking at his feet.

They stood silently, still several feet apart.

The baby squirmed, and Inga remembered she had meant to ask Kai about the location of the nurse. “I… I need to go,” she mumbled.

Henry frowned. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Oh, no!” Inga replied, flustered again. “Please don’t go. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… the baby, um… she doesn’t smell very good right now, and I was going to go ask Nanny to take over.”

As if on cue, the baby nurse came over, apologizing for having slept so long that morning. Inga told her not to worry, and thanked her.

“So, um, you sent me a note?” he stammered.

“Of course,” she said. She looked around. When she wrote the note, she had hoped the garden might be empty. “It’s getting a bit crowded here.”

“I suppose it is, but-”

She grabbed his hand and led him to the door in the wall that led down to the fjord. The wind was blowing in from the north, and she saw Henry shiver a bit as he walked down to the rocks with her. It hadn’t rained recently, so the rocks were dry. She let go of his hand and sat down on the largest rock. Henry stood where she left him looking confused.

“Are you going to come over here? I won’t bite.”

He raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Well, do you want to know how I send letters or don’t you?”

“Oh!” he laughed, coming over. “I really had absolutely no idea why you brought me here.”

She felt very conscious of how small the rock actually was as he sat down. Her hands were clenched in her lap. The air was chilly down here by the fjord, and he was warm. It wasn’t so bad.

“So…” he hemmed after he had been there a moment.

Inga swallowed. “Gale?”

Henry grabbed her hand as the wind whipped around them. He looked at her with his mouth slightly open, like he wanted to ask a question.

“No, I don’t have any letters,” Inga declared. A second gust swept more directly around Henry, who tightened his grip on her hand. “Yes, that’s him, you already know it is… so can you get his letters to me?” Henry was staring at her now, and she tried to ignore it, but a leaf hit her in the face. “No, I didn’t exactly tell my aunt. If she tells you to stop… Fine, thank you.”

The air was suddenly calm again.

Inga let out a long breath and looked at Henry again. “There, it’s all settled.”

“What’s settled?” He was staring wide eyed.

“Your letters won’t take two weeks to get to me any more.”

“How?”

“That was the wind spirit,” Inga explained, “You just ask, like I did, except you should probably be more respectful.”

“I…” he stammered. “I suppose this explains a lot.”

“Probably best if you don’t tell anyone, though.”

He nodded, looking out. She felt his grip on her hand loosen a bit, but he didn’t let go.

“Sorry I didn’t warn you,” she said, running her thumb along the side of his hand, “but it’s not like it would have made that much sense.”

“You’re not much for giving warnings, are you?” he smiled.

“Oh, right.” She could feel the blood rushing to her face. She looked away, then quickly looked back again. He was still looking at her.

“I’m pretty sure we’re both awake this time,” he laughed.

“I…yes? Of course...” Of course what? She looked into his eyes.

Henry's free hand reached over to her cheek and she turned toward him, interlacing her fingers with his other hand. As their lips met, she felt his hands move around her waist, and moved her hands under his coat. She hadn’t realized her fingers were starting to feel cold until then. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when they stopped, both breathing heavily, noses touching.

“So…” he breathed.

Inga rested her head on his shoulder, her hands still under his jacket. She wasn’t sure what to say. This was comfortable, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to move, though they would eventually have to. “I’m hungry,” she muttered, wondering why she was saying this before she even finished speaking.

“Um…” he sat up a little, smirking. “Actually, I am, too. I didn’t really eat breakfast this morning.”

***

Frederick had spent the entire morning down at the harbor talking with the Admiral. The Admiral was preparing to sail to Bergen that afternoon, leaving Frederick on his own for lunch. He wasn’t sure where anyone was, so he went to the castle kitchen. Coming in from the outside, he forgot that he now needed to duck on the last step down, and hit his head on the beam overhead, letting out a scream.

As he stood rubbing his head, he heard others in the kitchen, so he carefully ducked down and walked in.

“Hi, Frederick,” Inga laughed nervously, quickly finishing tying off her hair in a loose braid. “Did you hit your head again?”

“What makes you think I did?” he chuckled. As he looked around for what he wanted to eat, he noticed Henry standing at the other end of the table. “Henry? Good, I told you you should feel free to come down here if you’re hungry, I’m glad to see you did.”

“Um, yes, thanks,” Henry mumbled, walking back toward Inga to pick up the half eaten sandwich sitting next to her.

“Were you talking to the Admiral this morning?” Inga asked.

“Yes,” Frederick answered while he reached for the food he wanted, “and he’s heading to Bergen this afternoon.”

He stood eating, watching the other two finishing their sandwiches. Henry seemed a little too focused on his sandwich, and Inga wasn’t usually the type to fiddle with her hair in public. He wasn’t sure why they were acting oddly. His sister might think she was hiding something, but she wasn’t.

He heard something coming from the hallway inside, and looked toward the door behind his sister and Henry. It creaked open, startling the two, and Frederick saw their mother come in.

“Mother!” he called. “Are you joining us for lunch?”

Their mother stood for a moment looking somewhat perplexed at the group in front of her. “Thank you, Frederick, I think I will. Could you get something for me?” Frederick quickly put something together for her.

“Hello,” Inga greeted, trying to sound less awkward than she had clearly been the last several minutes. As their mother walked to the opposite side of the table from her. Frederick set down a plate with a sandwich. “How was your morning?”

“Oh, fine. ” their mother replied with a smile, “I met with the council. Nothing actually got settled with anything they were talking about.”

“Do they ever settle anything?” Frederick groaned.

“Certainly not today, and one duke was trying to impress me by quoting a book he’d obviously never read. Not that I’ve had time to read it, but Inga would have been helpful.”

"I think I know who you're talking about,” Inga sighed with exasperation, turning to Henry. “Ever since Karl was born he’s acted like we named him in honor of that man and thinks we’ll be impressed if he drops his name. I’d like to go back and change my brother’s name if I could just to avoid it. I’ve asked that duke enough questions, I know for sure he’s never read anything beyond the local newspaper, let alone anything on economics.”

“Have you read Mill?” Henry asked, looking at Inga.

Their mother startled slightly, not having paid full attention to who was sitting at the table.

“I meant to, actually, earlier this summer. I’ve… I should find my copy,” she smiled a little. “Have you read Ricardo?”

“I liked Ricardo more,” Henry declared, looking like he was seeking Inga’s approval.

Frederick wasn’t sure if he should leave the conversation wherever it was going, or if he should begin some other topic with his mother, but Kai entered at that moment.

“Your Majesty?”

“Yes, Kai?”

“His Highness has told me he will not be attending the dinner with the Belgian Ambassador. Is there anyone else you would like to attend?”

“Oh,” their mother sighed. “Inga, Frederick?”

“Um, sure,” Inga replied. Frederick thought she looked a little uncertain about their mother’s invitation.

“I can be there,” Frederick said immediately.

She smiled, “Kai, we’ll be there at six.”

After the steward left, she finished the sandwich Frederick had made her as they sat silently. "Thank you," she said as she stood up, "I should go find your father now. I'll see you this evening."

“I should get going,” Henry said, “I promised Hilde we’d go on a ride this afternoon.”

“We have several hours, would you like company?” Frederick asked.

"If it's not an imposition," Henry replied.

"None at all," Frederick laughed, "and besides, it looks like Inga is already dressed for riding."

***

It was late afternoon when they got back, with a little over an hour to get ready for dinner. Inga bathed and dressed, trying to get her hair arranged as best she could. There was still half an hour until dinner, but she had nothing to keep her in her room.

Walking down the hallway, she saw Elizabeth looking at the family portrait painted when Inga was nine.

“Elizabeth?” she called out.

“Oh, Inga, hello,” Elizabeth responded. “You look well.”

“Thanks, I kind of have to, dinner with some Belgians tonight. How are you?”

“I don’t want to take up your time if you’re in a hurry,” Elizabeth responded apologetically.

Inga frowned, realizing she had made it sound like she was brushing her off. “I’m not in a hurry at all. What’s wrong?”

“I feel like I should ask you that question. You seem fine this evening, and I don’t want to pry, but, I know there was something upsetting you the other night, after the ball.”

“It’s… it’s complicated,” Inga sighed. “There are a lot of things we don't want to know about the people we love."

“I don’t know if that’s really true,” Elizabeth protested, “though… I think Lars isn’t telling me something, and I wish he would tell me. He was talking with his mother after dinner Monday night, and he’s seemed upset ever since. He was talking to your father this morning, and he went out for a ride, but he’s not back yet.”

“Oh,” was all Inga managed to say. Lars knew the truth now. She wondered why they hadn’t met him on their ride, but perhaps they went a different way. She hoped he hadn’t gone too far.

“I… I should probably get going. Mrs. Nilsen told me to meet her for dinner soon.”

***

It was Thursday. Walking along the corridor, she heard Ambassador Meyer’s voice coming through his door. Her childhood instincts to listen in on foreign visitors got the best of her, and she slowed down for a moment on hearing him mention the royal orders from Corona.

“You’ll train him, of course.”

She heard a muffled “yes, Sir” from Lars, and hurried on her way, not actually interested in the conversation, but glad to know that Lars was well enough today. She continued on her way to the study, hoping to find her mother.

Entering the study without knocking, she saw her mother was alone.

“Good morning,” Inga said, walking in.

“Good morning,” her mother replied, watching her closely.

“How are you today?” Inga asked coolly, expecting some small talk about the dinner the night before.

“I'm fine," her mother replied, pausing and looking down at the papers in front of her. "Do you know that the ship from Corona is leaving tomorrow?"

"No," Inga said, her throat tightening a little.

"They're leaving one of the candidates here for training, I don't remember which. I think they're going to England next. Their emissary told me all of this earlier this morning."

"That's good to know," Inga replied, shifting uneasily, finding it suddenly hard to focus.

"Here," her mother quickly changed the subject, handing her a large stack of letters. "Why don't you start on these?"

***

Inga walked across the courtyard. She had the entire afternoon to herself, but couldn't decide what she wanted to do. As she passed by the stables, she saw her father stepping out, wiping his hands. She stopped, he saw her and walked over.

"Hello," she mumbled.

"How are you?" he asked, stopping a few feet away.

"I'm fine," she answered, hesitating a little. "I'm sorry, by the way, for everything I said to you."

She looked him directly in the eye, and it felt painful.

"You already apologized," he reminded her, "but thank you."

Inga swallowed hard and took a strong breath. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he answered, “I won’t hold you up if you’re meeting people in town.”

“I’m not really sure what I’m doing right now,” she said with a nervous laugh, trying her best not to avoid crying in this public place. Her father stepped forward hesitantly. Inga stepped forward, and leaned in as he hugged her tightly.

“You’ll be fine,” he told her.

“Maybe,” she replied as she stepped back, “but probably.”

“Good,” he smiled, “now, go have lunch.”

***

Inga turned the corner to her room and saw Henry standing there.

“Hi,” he smiled.

“Hi,” she replied, biting her lip a bit. “I heard you’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes.” He looked at his feet, one hand fumbling in his coat pocket. “I’ll write to you, I promise.”

“I know,” she beamed.

He pulled his hand out of his coat pocket, holding onto something small. “I wanted to give you this.”

“I still have the photo you gave me before,” she blurted out.

“No, this is… um, here.” He pushed the envelope into her hand.

She opened it up and saw a small pencil drawing that looked almost exactly like the photograph she’d sent him, but it was only of her. She blinked, staring at it. Her nose wasn’t quite right, but she liked his version better than the real thing. It was beautiful, and he’d made it for her. She couldn’t think of what to say.

“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t like it,” he added quickly.

“Why? No… I mean, I do like it, but, what is it? I mean, I know what it is, but-”

“I drew it on the way here,” he said. “Or, well, I started drawing it. I won’t show you the ones that didn’t work. I hope it’s not… I don’t know-”

“I love it,” she interrupted. “Thank you.” Inga couldn’t help but hug him. She could hear him gasp a little from the force she hit him with, but soon he held her close, as well. As they pulled away, she saw him smile a little less shyly, and there was a definite gleam in his eye.

***

Inga sat at the harbor early Friday morning, watching the ship from Corona sail away toward the open sea, heading for England next. They had been up before dawn loading the ship, and Inga had barely managed to get up when it was first light out, so her goodbyes with Henry had to be awkwardly public. Now, she hugged her legs and sighed, listening to the bustle of the morning business picking up behind her.

“Inga?” She heard Elizabeth call out behind her.

“Oh, hello,” Inga smiled, stretching her legs to hang over the ledge where she was sitting. “What are you up to this morning?”

Elizabeth looked up. “Lars was up early to meet with the Ambassador and to train his replacement. I saw the ship being loaded, and I thought I might come take a look. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said, “would you like to join me?”

“I don’t think I can get up there,” Elizabeth admitted.

“That’s not a problem,” Inga said, lowering herself down to the quay. “Were you going anywhere?”

“Not in particular. So, you’ve been well?”

“I… I think so,” Inga replied honestly. “How is everything with…” she couldn’t manage to finish her question, but looked meaningfully at Elizabeth.

“Better, I think. He had fallen asleep by the time I was done with dinner the other night, and since then he’s been up early and working. I suppose he’ll tell me what was going on when he’s ready.”

Inga could only nod in agreement as they walked along.

“They were talking about trying to get over there before winter,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “If we sail to England next month, we could take a steamship over.”

“So soon? You wouldn’t even be here for Christmas, you know.”

“I know, but Lars has decided it’s imperative to have the post filled now.”

Inga frowned, but it wasn’t her place to interfere. “I’m sorry you’ll be missing it.”

“I am too,” Elizabeth said, touching Inga’s arm. “You have to promise to write. I’ll write you, if you don’t mind, of course.”

“Yes, please,” Inga said. “And, please promise you won’t stop writing me, even if it takes longer to reply sometimes. It’s always disappointing when someone stops writing.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “But for now, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s enjoy it.”

#my fic #the young diplomat #chapter 32 #kristanna #the one with the #fight club quote

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syntaxeme · 4 years

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Nowhere to Go But Up ch. 1

Chapter word count: 3859 Rating: T Pairing: Angel/Val Read on AO3: [x] Next chapter: [coming soon!] Story summary: Angel's history of drugs, gangs, and porn isn't quite as glamorous as most people think. This is the story of how a scrawny, lonely dead boy named Anthony moved up (or down) in the world and became Hell's #1 sex symbol, Angel Dust. The only way to the top is to claw your way up from the bottom.

— — –

When Anthony got to Hell, it didn’t surprise him to find that his old man was already there. Where the fuck else would he have gone? As ‘religious’ as their Catholic family had always been, his father was a piece of shit by all accounts, a sinner through and through. It took a couple weeks for him to figure it out, since people called him ‘Henroin’ down here—but even that made sense. Smack was always his drug of choice in life, so why should death be any different?

It took some doing, some seducing of guards and general sexual favors for his advisors (even though Anthony’s body wasn’t exactly how he remembered it, he still got used to it quickly), but Anthony eventually got an audience with him. And again, unsurprisingly, Henroin wasn’t happy to see him.

“Shit, Anton, you died even faster than I expected,” the boss—even a boss in Hell, apparently—growled, unimpressed. He looked every bit as spidery as Anthony had become, maybe even more so. “Just when I thought you couldn’t disappoint me more.”

“Thanks, Pop, good to see you too,” Anthony said with a roll of his eyes.

“Well? What do you want?” Henroin asked flatly.

“What do you fucking think? I’m your son. Shouldn’t I be involved in your business down here?”

His father let out a cold laugh. “When have you ever been useful to my business? If your brother was here, or even Molly, they might be useful. You? You’re worthless. Always have been. I dunno what you expected to change now you’re dead.”

That was a fair point. His father had never appreciated anything about who he was or how he felt, and vice-versa. Why would he care what happened to Anthony’s soul for the rest of his immortal life? It was Hell. Nobody cared about anybody, as Anthony was soon to learn.

He spent his next few months (assuming he was even perceiving time right in this weird, fucked-up realm) on the streets, whoring around, doing whatever it took to survive. He got ripped off more than once, some demon fucking him all night then beating the shit out of him when he mentioned payment. He figured out pretty quick that drugs were every bit as big in Hell as they were on Earth, so that was where most of his money went. Just to not be conscious. Just to forget for a minute.

It was supposed to be a punishment, wasn’t it? What little he remembered of church was that Hell was where Bad People went because they’d done Bad Things and deserved to Feel Bad. Well, he was, he had, and he did. God, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt like anything other than absolute shit. It might’ve stayed that way forever—or at least until the next extermination—if he hadn’t met Cherri.

That morning, he was slumped against a gutted storefront, his eyes clouded, his head foggy as he was still coming off a high from two days ago. Some woman strolled up to him and nudged his leg with a booted foot. “Hey,” she said flatly. “Get off my street, skid, you’re making me look bad.”

“Get out of my face, bitch,” Anthony grumbled, turning away, covering his eyes to hide from the sunrise’s glaring light.

“Ha!” The demoness bent at the waist, grasped a handful of his hair, and forced his head up. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“I said fuck off!” Anthony snapped, jerking away from her hand. “Are you fucking deaf? Get away from me.”

The girl laughed again and gestured at a couple of big demons standing at her back. “Bring him.” Although he didn’t want to be taken who-knew where for who-knew what reason, Anthony really didn’t have the energy to fight. They took him across Pentagram City in a banged-up towncar driven by the girl-boss herself, then dragged him inside what he recognized as a shitty little gang complex.

“You’re tweaked out of your fucking head, aren’t you?” When she grabbed his hair again and forced him to look at her, his eyes were clear enough to realize that she only had one above her sharp-toothed grin. He sneered and tried to escape her grasp, but she just laughed as she released him. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. Put his ass to bed.”

Despite Anthony’s attempts to tempt them with his body—probably pretty sloppy attempts, considering how fucked up he was—the guys working for her ignored him and dragged him off to a sort of cell, a bare room with a bed and a barred window, then locked him up alone. What’s-her-tits appeared in a slot in the cell door and told him once he calmed down, maybe they could try talking again. Considering how bad he was coming down, how miserable and unhinged he was, he screamed, he fought, he clawed at his own skin, but nothing did him any good. He tore the room apart. He shouted until his throat shredded and bled. He dissolved into sobbing and hyperventilating in a corner of the room. God, everything, everything felt so fucking bad, and now that he didn’t have some kind of distraction, drugs or sex or booze, whatever, he was being forced to feel every bit of it.

Sometime while he was passed out, they put water inside the room for him, and he savored every drop on his damaged throat. They delivered food, and he ate for the first time in who-knew how long. There was a period, he didn’t have any idea how long, where he was barely even aware of what was going on around him, too angry and scared and agonized to keep track. This wasn’t any better. He wished he could just fucking die to escape it, like he had on Earth, but that wasn’t an option here. Maybe he deserved this. Maybe he had done enough wrong in life to belong in this shithole for the rest of eternity.

Days, maybe weeks passed in this cycle of misery and pain and eventual, merciful oblivion once he passed out. Finally, the girl-boss came back by his room and opened the door to stroll inside, apparently not worried about him trying to escape. Which he didn’t. Dropping to sit in front of the mattress that had been serving as his bed, she rested her chin in one hand. “So?” she prompted. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” Anthony said quietly, having gotten past all his anger and violence to the point that he was just exhausted and depressed now.

The demoness, his captor, rolled her eye. “Anyway, I’m Cherri. And you are…?”

Despite his reluctance, he huffed out, “Anthony.”

“Great. I’m gonna call you Tony,” she said with a grin, leaning forward to watch him curiously. “What’s your story? How’d you end up on my side of town?”

“What do you care? You saw me before. You’ve seen how pathetic I am all this time,” he muttered, unable to even look at her. “I’m nothing. I’m nobody. If you’re gonna kill me or whatever, just fucking do it.”

“God, you’re depressing,” she said. “Well if you ain’t gonna tell me, you got anybody you know down here? Friends? Family? Some gang I can get you back to?”

“No. I mean, there’s my dad, but he doesn’t give a shit about me. People call him Henroin.”

“Holy fuck!” Cherri crowed, her eye growing wide. “You’re Henroin’s kid? I didn’t think—”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said he doesn’t care,” Anthony snapped. “It’s not like you can ransom me to him or whatever, because he won’t pay.” He knew that for a fact, having experienced something similar in life.

“Huh. Can’t really say I’m surprised. I’ve always heard he’s an asshole.” Refusing to let the subject go, refusing to leave him to suffer alone, she suggested, “So answer me yourself.”

“What’s the point?”

“The point is I wanna know. Look, I know you’re in the middle of some bad withdrawal right now. Like, I can tell, I’ve been there, I see it on you. It fucking sucks. Makes you wish you were deader than you already are. But this place ain’t something you get out of by losing your will to live, and eternity is a long time to keep feeling like that or drugging yourself stupid, you know?” She started bouncing one leg, apparently a little restless but keeping her attention on him. “If you quit being so mopey about it, I bet I can help.”

“Why? Why bother with my mopey ass?” Anthony demanded, and Cherri grinned back.

“I dunno, you were kind of a bitch that first time we talked, and I kind of liked it,” she confessed. “Plus, most everybody around here knows better than to fuck with me, so maybe I like the change of pace.”

“Look, if you think I’m gonna be all grateful you ‘saved my life’ and we’re gonna be best pals, you’ve got another thing coming,” Anthony argued, finally managing to muster a little irritation. “I ain’t here to entertain you, and I ain’t fucking you either. If that’s what you—”

Cherri dropped her head back and let out a loud, grating laugh. “I’m not into dudes, you stuck-up prick,” she snickered, though she sounded more amused than offended. “So ditto. How about you take a few more days to chill the fuck out and then we’ll talk about you maybe joining my crew?”

***

It wasn’t fast, it wasn’t easy, but Anthony eventually got used to his role at Cherri’s place. Every day or so, maybe a couple times a day, she would come by his room and they would chat about whatever—his life before all this, her life, her new life, and the shitty excuse for ‘living’ he’d been doing ever since his dad kicked him out. After all, he had nothing better to do with his time, and he found talking with her worked to distract him from all the shit his body was still going through.

She told him more about the gang and her role in it, about how satisfying it was to kick some douchey demon’s ass when he was trying to horn in on her turf. She was shocked that he was a mobster’s son in life and still didn’t know how to use a damn gun, which she said was a crime in itself. When he mentioned the demons who had taken advantage of him before they met, Cherri was absolutely livid and swore on the spot that she was going to teach him how to defend himself.

“You can’t let them get away with that shit,” she growled. “If they think you’re too weak to stop them, fuckers down here will eat you alive. You gotta show ‘em you ain’t somebody they want to mess with.”

Considering how totally opposed it was to the rest of his experience in Hell so far, it kind of threw him off to be around someone who gave a shit about other people again. Maybe not all other people, but Cherri took care of her own gang, at least, and now she was asking him to be part of it. It wasn’t like he had any better options to pursue. So once he had finally gotten all the crystal and cravings out of his system, once he was himself enough to care where his future was going, he left his cell (which hadn’t been locked for some time) and found Cherri to accept her offer.

It turned out that when you weren’t trying to take on everything by yourself, Hell really wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t 24/7 misery, at least, now that Anthony wasn’t completely alone and struggling for life on the street. True to her word, Cherri trained him with guns. And knives. And bombs. And poisons. She even helped him figure out how to use his own spindly, lanky body to his advantage in a fight; it turned out he was a lot more flexible and agile than he’d realized. The inherent violence of Hell was obviously her favorite part of the whole deal, and with her encouragement, Anthony started enjoying it too. It was nice to not feel powerless for once. And even in the moments when he was overwhelmed, it was nice to know there were people on his side. Cherri’s gang was made up of junkies and criminals, but this group of sinners stuck together and looked out for each other. Good to have a family that actually wanted him for once.

***

About ten years after his death, there was a big turf war between their gang and some bird-looking asshole who took himself way too seriously. Called himself Bedlam. If he had been upfront about his whole hostile takeover bullshit, Cherri’s gang would’ve wiped his, easy. But he decided to come at them sideways with a ‘sneak attack’ and took out a third of their guys overnight. Cherri was furious but a little panicked over the sudden decrease in their forces. As far as Anthony could tell, she’d never been in a fight this big, this serious, and it was really getting to her.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked, more laidback than her, as usual. “It’s not like we don’t have way more muscle regardless. He can throw his ‘cultured’ fuckwads at us all day and we’ll gut every one of ‘em.”

“Muscle ain’t gonna win a fucking war, Tony,” she argued, holed up in her ‘office’ and trying to figure out how to approach this. “If he’s smart enough and he pulls another sneaky trick like this, we can kiss our cozy setup here good-bye. Goddamn it!” She grabbed up her desk chair and slung it out the window behind her, not flinching in the slightest at the sound of shattering glass. She had a point Anthony couldn’t argue with; he’d seen enough of his dad’s business to know brains beat brawn nine times out of ten.

“We need guys who are a little bit of both,” he mused, tapping his foot idly from his seat by the wall. “Like, you got your baseline soldiers and your advisors. You got your bruisers and your assassins. You need more of those guys. Specialists, you know? Precision killers. Right?”

“Yeah,” Cherri said thoughtfully, nodding slowly as she considered what he was saying. “Yeah, I think you’re right, babe. But people like that don’t come cheap. I’d have to…I might have to… Ah, fuck.” With a defeated growl, she shoved away from her desk and marched toward the door.

“Hey, where we going?” Anthony asked, hopping up to follow after her.

“Not we. Just me. I’m going to get some help. I don’t wanna do it, but we ain’t got much choice,” she told him as she strode through the complex without once looking back.

“Hey, why can’t I help? You know I can be persuasive, bitch. Let me—”

“Tony.” She rounded on him, her sneer less vicious and more nervous. “Just stay here, okay? I’ll be back and I’ll talk the whole deal out with you. The only way I’m gonna get this done is if I do it on my own. Okay?”

Seeing how shaken up she was and not wanting to make it worse, he heaved a sigh and threw his hands up. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Try not to die.”

He watched her car drive off, both pairs of arms crossed in irritation. But Cherri had been doing this boss thing for a while. He had to trust she knew how to do it. But getting excluded from the plan like this, being told “just stay at home and trust me to take care of it”? It was too reminiscent of his father and brother excluding him from family work. He hated that shit.

It took hours for Cherri to get back. Anthony stalked around the complex, waiting for a call, a sign, the sound of the car’s engine, anything. It was past midnight when she finally trudged inside, dragging her feet, looking exhausted. Anthony was lounging in her room, half-asleep in her bed when the door slammed open.

“Hey,” he said groggily, forcing himself up to look her in the face. “You look like shit. Where you been?”

“Not now.” She wandered unsteadily over to the bed and collapsed, dropping her face against her pillow. “Just. Lemme sleep. I’ll explain tomorrow.” Anthony watched her for a few seconds, realizing she was already mostly unconscious, and let out a defeated sigh. Dragging a blanket over her still form, he lay down and draped one arm over her shoulders.

“All right. Tomorrow.”

But tomorrow came, and he didn’t get his explanation. The next few days were so busy that he and Cherri hardly had time to sit down and talk; they spent too much time fighting or planning to fight or getting ambushed and then defending themselves. And even though Anthony wasn’t sure how she’d pulled it off, the boss had definitely brought in some skilled help, the kind of vicious, calculating bastards who kept cool in a fight but each did just as much damage as a team of ten amateur muscleheads.

“Shit, Cherri!” Anthony laughed during another street brawl, watching wave after wave of Bedlam’s henchmen get cut down by their reinforcements. “Where’d you find these guys? They’re brutal!”

“Didn’t I tell you I’d take care of it?” she asked with a grin, lobbing another bomb and cackling gleefully as it went off. “Nobody fucks with my people and walks away from it.”

After that point, the ‘war’ didn’t last much longer; with the new demons she’d brought in, Cherri’s gang was pretty much unstoppable, even spreading out further to take over the opposing gang’s turf. When she cornered Bedlam, it turned out he wasn’t much of a fighter himself and had to rely on his bodyguards—who had all abandoned ship when they realized they were on the losing side. Loyalty was a foreign concept to most demons, after all.

Cherri beat the absolute shit out of the guy, even shoved a bomb down his throat in her blind fury. The whole thing was real messy, and nobody walked away from it smiling. But at least it was over.

Sort of.

Sometime later in the week, as things were getting back to normal and Cherri was figuring out how to run shit now that her territory was twice as big, Anthony came to meet her in her office, only to find the door locked.

“Look, I don’t have the time right now,” he heard from inside. Cherri’s voice. He got closer and pressed his ear to the door to listen. What kind of conversation could she be having that she’d lock him out of it? “My gang still needs me directing them while we clean up this fucking mess. Tell him I’ll be there when I’m ready.”

“You better not keep him waiting too long, sweetheart,” an unfamiliar voice responded. “Val ain’t the most patient guy, and you wouldn’t want him having to collect your debt by force.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are, coming into my place and making threats? I don’t care who your boss is; if you don’t get—” Her voice cut off with what was unmistakably a slap and a cry of pain, sending Anthony’s heart rate through the roof. Without thinking, he took a step back and broke the door in with a single powerful kick, already drawing three different guns to aim at whoever was hurting his friend.

Cherri struggled to her feet behind her desk, jaws clenched in an unyielding snarl. The guy she was arguing with was huge and dressed in a suit, totally out of place among their ragtag gang. “Get the fuck away from her,” Anthony hissed. The guy looked him coldly up and down, then turned away to speak to Cherri again.

“You’ve got a week to get your ass to the studio and hold up your end of the deal. After that, there’ll be consequences.” He left the room without another glance in Anthony’s direction.

“You broke my door, you bitch,” Cherri muttered once he was gone.

“Forget that. What the fuck just happened?” Anthony demanded, putting his guns away and coming over to her desk to check on her. Her head was down, but he could still see a red mark growing on her swollen cheek. He tried to reach out, to see if there was anything he could do to help, but she swatted his hands away.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you kidding? That guy just knocked you on your ass. You wouldn’t’ve let him walk away without a good reason.” What was the name he had used? “Val. Who’s Val?”

Cherri was silent for a few more seconds, curling her hands into tight fists and pressing them against the desktop. Eventually, quietly, she explained, “His name’s Valentino. He’s a bigshot Overlord from the North Side. Tons of money, tons of people, tons of ‘friends in high places.’ He loaned me a bunch of his guys for the turf war, so now I…owe him.”

“Owe him what?” Anthony asked despite the sinking feeling in his stomach. Surely Cherri wouldn’t agree to what he was imagining. The longer she waited to answer, though, the worse his fears got.

“He runs Porn Studios. He’s been trying to get me to shoot with him for years, so I told him if he helped us out with Bedlam…” She trailed off with a shrug, unwilling to even say the words out loud. “We were out of options, babe. I couldn’t let the whole gang get murdered because I couldn’t lead them right. So it is what it is. I’ll go do whatever gross shit Val wants from me and we’ll move on like it didn’t happen.” Even as she was saying it, though, she seemed unsure, which was a very rare state to see her in.

Anthony wasn’t sure how to respond. Whatever Valentino was asking her to do, it was obviously something she was dreading, and he’d seen plenty of times how heated she got about anyone being pressured or forced into sex. Him, on the other hand… Well, sex just wasn’t that big a deal to him. Never had been.

Cherri had done so much for him. She was always the one backing him up in a fight, always the one who made him talk about the shit that bothered him. If it weren’t for her taking him in all those years ago, he would almost definitely be double-dead already, totally wiped from existence. There was really no way to pay her back for all that. But if she was finally in a position she couldn’t handle alone, if this was something that genuinely scared her or made her nervous, he was going to do whatever it took to help her out of it.

He would just have to convince Valentino to let him pay her debt instead.

#Hazbin Angel Dust #Hazbin Valentino #Angel Dust x Valentino #do they have a proper pairing name? abusive ships don't really get that I guess. >.>#Hazbin Cherri Bomb #to those of you looking for ch. 5 of One Good Turn: I'm sorry but I swear it's in the works!#my writing #fanfiction #NtGBU #ValAngel #ValxAngel

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britesparc · 5 years

Text

Weekend Top Ten #389

Top Ten Things I Want from The Batman

So last week I celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Tim Burton’s Batman by listing the things I thought he got “right” about the character (“right” being, I acknowledge, arbitrary). This time around, sticking with a similar theme, I’m going to flip the switch and look to the future. Matt Reeves’ long-gestating Bat-pic The Batman is finally gearing up, having recently cast its Dark Knight in the shape of erstwhile vampire Robert Pattinson. The saga of The Batman, its Affleck-ness and its connectedness with the DCEU as-was, is almost worth a movie on its own (I really hope there’s a book written about it at some point, or at least a long-form essay; the ins and outs of what became of the DCEU and the de-Snyder-fication of their film slate is potentially fascinating). At any rate, we’re going to get another Batman film and that’s quite exciting. Especially as it is – potentially – a chance to course-correct issues that I had over the previous incarnation of the Caped Crusader. Ben Affleck was very good, but he looked a bit sad and hefty in the suit (the silly cowl essentially removed his neck), and he killed a lot of people. Like, tons. What’s up with that?

So with all that in mind, and given everything that’s come before, here’s a list of places where I hope Reeves and Pattinson go with their Bat-epic. Or even don’t go! You’ll see what I mean, as we get into a list of things I want from the new Batman, The Batman.

No Guns, No Killing: this is a big one for me. The Batman I love in the comics – most of the incarnations, anyway – is very strict about this. For him, murder is the worst crime, and his whole deal is being Anti-Crime. Therefore he would never, ever kill. Also he views guns as, literally, the “weapon of the enemy”. Even Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy – which is probably the closest to the comics in terms of his “one rule” – had him bedecking his equipment with guns and “not saving” people. Here, I’d like a very strict code.

White Eyes: okay, I’m not asking for an MCU Spider-Man here; I know comics characters have whited-out eyes in costume and that doesn’t usually translate to live-action. But Batman would/could/should wear some kind of eye-piece. Even if it’s goggles that he removes/retract into his cowl. What I want to avoid is the blacked-out “panda eyes” look of seeing his real eyes within his cowl. I just find it a bit daft for Batman.

A Working Batsuit: whilst I’m on the subject of Batman’s Bat-duds, one thing that I loved about the Nolan-verse was that his outfit was sensible. Obviously not too sensible, as he’s, y’know, dressed as a bat, but it looked like a suit designed to fight crime in. The Burton/Schumacher suits looked like sculpted pieces of rubber, no good for movement; the Snyder suit looked like fancy dress with “cosmetic damage” and rubbery wrinkles. The MCU, on the other hand, is great at making superhero suits that look iconic and super-y but also workable; Captain America wears some kind of oversuit with, presumably, armour on the inside, and also a cowl of sorts, but one which allows him to move his head and which looks functional despite also having a dirty great “A” on it.

Sweet Wheels: similarly, I’d like a Batmobile that’s more “car” than “tank”. The Burton/Schumacher films, as was their want, gave Bats a car that was more form than function; going the other way, Nolan and Snyder had heavily-armoured war machines that owed a big debt to The Dark Knight Returns. I’d rather lean towards the former, but really, can’t he just have some souped-up Knight Rider thing that’s fast and stealthy? He’s more Black Widow than War Machine don’t forget.

Heh: Batman has, by his own admission, “a sense of humour that nobody gets”. I don’t want a relentlessly dour grimdark Batman. Give me a Batman who can crack a wry smile or a sardonic one-liner, even if he’s being bitterly ironic. To be fair most screen incarnations of Batman have had some sense of humour, but Batman v Superman in particular was almost relentless in its miserableness so I’m hoping The Batman has a funny bone, pitch black as it may be.

A Real Gotham: although I praised to the heavens last week the Anton Furst-ified Gotham of Batman and Batman Returns, I’d like it if the new film hewed closer to Nolan’s vision of the city as a “real” place. Sure, give it stylised embellishments; make it “New York at night” or some twisted version of New Jersey or Chicago or whatever. But I don’t think we need the ridiculous mile-high statues of the Schumacher films, and the less said about the frankly terrible CGI cityscape from the opening minutes of Justice League the better. Shoot on location, or use really good CGI. Make it 10% weirder than normal and I think we’re onto a winner.

Make Batman John Wick: I love how John Wick fights. He’s all business. Boom, boom, the guy’s down, blam, blam, he’s dead. It’s all about minimalising risk, fighting as efficiently as possible. He gets the guys down because, well, the longer they’re up the more chance that they’ll kill him. Batman should fight like that. As few moves as possible, but target them precisely; nothing flashy or extravagant, just get the guys down. Obviously he doesn’t kill or use a gun (see point number 1) but I want a Batman who looks cool when fighting, looks like he trained with monks and ninjas and assassins and wizards. Basically, let’s have some genuinely impressive-looking fight scenes for once.

Make Batman Sherlock: I have high hopes for this one, as the word round the internet campfire is The Batman will be much more detective-focused than previous films (to this date, the two Batmen who are the most sleuth-y are Adam West and Kevin Conroy). But Batman is supposed to be the World’s Greatest Detective so, y’know, let’s see him detect. Greatly. Er, around the world. Make it a proper crime film, a whodunnit. That’d be good.

Make Batman Weird: not necessarily “Tim Burton weird”, but just give us a sense that this is a Batman who has a sci-fi closet. A Batman who, maybe, has fought Monster Men, Killer Crocs, sentient mud and murderous flora. Nolan’s Batman was super-serious and Snyder’s Batman was super-miserable so whilst I applaud a more street-level focus and a noir-ish tone, I hope the possibility exists for a world full of Man-Bats, immortal warlords, dollotrons, and more.

A Wider World: I really hope this one is viable. The plan was for the Justice League-centred movies to form a spine, telling a story arc over multiple films, with the stand-alone tales functioning as spin-offs. As it turned out, the “spin-offs” were the successful ones, and with Batman being rebooted from Batfleck to Battinson, it looks like the “Extended” part of “DC Extended Universe” is up in the air (so is the “Universe” part too, I guess). I don’t know if Justice League or the preceding films are still in continuity even, or if continuity is still a thing, but all the same what I want from a DC Comics adaptation is a shared universe. I’m not a big fan of Zack Snyder’s incarnation of that universe (too dark, miserable, and po-faced), but I still want to see Bruce hanging out with Clark, teaming up with Diana, arguing with Arthur… I want that feeling you get from the MCU (and the comics, for that matter), that Wakanda going public or SHIELD being disbanded or Tony Stark dying is going to have repercussions in other films. I think The Batman is going to be pretty much self-contained in the same way as Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam, but all the same, I hope the potential is still there. In much the same way as I’m very happy for the film to be a street-level noir with the potential to one day have a sequel featuring Batman and Robin fighting off Mister Freeze in a Bat-UFO, I hope it focuses on Bruce and Gotham with the potential to segue into a Justice League movie or have a sequel set in Themyscira or something. Don’t close off the universe, is what I’m saying.

So there we are. I’m aware that this is, essentially, a fanboy wishlist of My Ideal Batman, coming from a straight white bloke in his thirties who graduated from Year One through Knightfall then “New Gotham” and found his Batman apogee in the works of Grant Morrison. Matt Reeves has his vision and it’s good that he sticks to that (for better or worse, I still would have liked to have seen how Snyder’s proposed Justice League arc had played out – although I am emphatically not a “Snyder Cut” devotee). But I feel there’s a sweet spot between stylised and realistic, between comics-accurate and designed-for-film, that hasn’t quite been reached with Batman yet (The Animated Series came closest). Nolan’s films are obviously the best, but I do think that the more realistic you make Batman’s world, the less realistic he himself becomes, and you make the central conceit (trust fund orphan did a lot of push-ups then dressed as a Dracula to Fight Crime) all the more silly. I’m still a bit sad that we lost Affleck, but I’m very excited by where we’re going to go. I just hope it doesn’t preclude a World’s Finest, Justice League Unlimited, or – heck – even a Robin movie somewhere down the line.

#top ten #batman #dc comics #the batman #matt reeves #robert pattinson #dceu #movies #comics

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ultinath · 5 years

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Octavia 1: how do you make hypnosis look so easy?

The soft lighting up against the vaulted ceiling made the dungeon look cosy. Quiet music could be heard whenever the whips and floggers paused or were put down. Someone in the room moaned and gasped.

Dan adjusted his elegant black stetson and smiled in the general direction of the moaning sound. He wore a black button down shirt with dark red and blue flowers on it, and he seemed content to be just standing at the bar with a drink.

Anton was almost two feet taller than Dan and was dressed in a plain white shirt that stretched too tightly across his chest, and jaunty purple striped slacks with matching suspenders. He seemed to be looking around the room, as if he was nervous for someone to arrive. "What time is it?" He asked Dan.

Dan produced a shiny silver pocketwatch and flipped it open. "Quarter past." He patted Anton on the muscular arm. "Don't sweat it."

Anton hung his head and stared into his drink. "I know, I know…"

Khalid came swaggering over from the other side of the dungeon in his tan suit. His dark green bow tie hung undone around his neck and he was smiling as he carelessly carried a bag with a number of coils of rope visible inside it. "My dudes!" He greeted them. "What's happening?"

Dan tipped his hat. "We're just waiting."

Khalid laid the bag on a chair and reached over the bar to pour himself a glass of water. "For?"

"Octavia…" Anton inhaled deeply and looked around the room again.

Khalid gently shook his head. "A lady worth waiting for. Mind if I join you?"

"She's amazing, isn't she?" Dan gave Khalid a smile.

Khalid twirled the tip of his moustache. "Tell me something, Dan."

Dan perked up and blinked at him with his big, brown eyes.

"When she took your hat and dropped you in front of everyone, was that rehearsed in any way? Was it a hypnotic trigger?"

Dan bowed his head and sighed. "No. That's just how well she knows how to handle me."

"Impressive…" Khalid sipped his water. "Do you know if she's going to give more classes?"

His question hung unanswered in the air, because Anton jumped for a second, and then tried to compose himself quickly. "There is she is!"

All three men turned to look towards the entrance, where a lady in a floorlength deep turquoise gown had appeared. She paused there for a second to take in the room, and then strode in a straight line towards them. Frozen like a deer in headlights, Anton wiped some sweat off his brow, while Khalid and Dan followed her with their eyes in a more calm manner.

Dan closed his eyes for a moment and bowed his head. "Good evening, My Lady."

Octavia held out her hand to him, and he gratefully leaned in to kiss it. She looked at Anton and Khalid in turn as she folded her hands together. "Gentlemen. How is the party?"

Anton smiled as he stared into her eyes. "Better now…"

She grinned at him. "Patience, big man. Patience."

"Can I pick your brain about something, Octavia?" Khalid asked as he put down his glass. "If you're not busy?"

"I have time." She smiled at Anton.

He swallowed and folded his massive hands behind his back, as if standing to attention.

She turned to Dan. "I'd like a glass of water."

Dan trotted off behind the bar to pour her a glass of water and bring it to her.

"What's on your mind, Khalid?" Octavia asked as she sipped her water.

"Hypnosis seems like such a complicated process when you first learn it." His eyes examined Dan and Octavia in turn. "I feel like I've only just scratched the surface, but all the ways to hypnotise a person seem to take a lot of time and effort. Yet you make it look so quick and easy. So how does that work?"

Octavia shook her head. "When I started out as a hypnotist, I started with the Elman induction, just like you. And the progressive relaxation induction. They are as good a place to start as any." She drained the glass of water and held it out in front of her.

Dan took the glass from her and brought it back to the sink behind the bar. As he returned to his place by her side, Anton and Khalid were both staring at him.

"That was not hypnosis, was it?" Octavia smiled mysteriously. "Nor did I tell him what to do, did I?"

Khalid frowned. "No. But what does that have to do with it?"

Octavia held up one finger, as if she was asking him to wait. She turned to Dan and took the hat off his head. Dan's eyes sparkled with anticipation, as Octavia handed the hat to Anton. "Can you hold onto this for a second?"

Anton nodded silently and carefully took the hat into his hands. His eyes were wide and there was a sheen of sweat on his shaved head.

Khalid and Anton both gasped when Octavia grasped Dan by the hair on the back of his head. Dan's arms hung limp at his sides as his eyes and mouth opened. She pulled his head back and up slightly until his legs were trembling. "Pay attention, love. Focus on me. Focus. And freeze now." She let go of him, gently laying her hands on his shoulders. The trembling stopped. The eyes remained open but the mouth closed. Dan stood there, motionless and frozen in place.

Octavia turned to Khalid with a smile. "Just like with the glass, I never told him what to do, nor did I prepare this. He just knows me. He knows what I like to do with him. He infers from the context what is expected of him, and he obeys to the best of his abilities, because I have never given him a reason not to obey me, and I have always rewarded him for his obedience."

Khalid nodded slowly, awestruck.

Anton stepped closer and waved the hat in front of Dan's glassy blank eyes. No reaction. "Fffuck…" He shot Octavia a look full of amazement.

She held his gaze for a moment. "I'm not saying I can do this to you immediately. Dan is a very experienced sub. But many things are possible."

Anton swallowed and slunk backward against the bar.

As Khalid opened his mouth to speak, Octavia held up one finger again. "Give me just one moment, will you?"

She turned back to Dan and took his face into both her hands. "Look at me, love. Focus on me. Come back. You did so well."

A shiver ran through Dan and he closed his eyes, resting his chin in Octavia's hands. "Thank you, My Lady."

She ran her fingers through his beard for a second and then stepped back to give him more space. "Maybe you should have a glass of water."

Dan nodded and went around the bar to pour himself some water.

Octavia turned back to Khalid. "As I said, Dan is very experienced. If he feels like I am asking him to go into a hypnotic trance, he will. He has done it many times, so he knows how it works. No fancy words necessary. Clear intention is enough."

Khalid seemed to be thinking. "But if that's true, then why learn hypnotic techniques at all? Why not focus on communicating that intention more directly instead of by asking them to open and close their eyes and say convoluted Ericksonian shit to them?"

Octavia smiled and turned her head to Dan. "Give me your watch for a moment."

Dan gulped down the glass of water and hurried over to hand her his shiny, silver pocketwatch. She thanked him and he quietly stood at her side, waiting.

Octavia took the chain in her hand and let the watch dangle down as she lifted her arm up into the air. "Indulge me for a moment, Anton."

The big man's shouders tensed visibly under his shirt and suspenders. "Me?"

"Yes. If you will. Just look at the watch." She swung it back and forth in front of his face and he apprehensively followed it with his eyes. In silence. Octavia didn't say another word, and after a few moments, pearly drops of sweat rolled down Anton's face. He awkwardly loomed towards the watch, being much taller than Octavia, and desperately tried to follow it with his eyes, but it swung too fast for him, it seemed.

"I'm sorry... " He cringed and hung his head. "I don't think it's working."

She patted him on the arm. "Of course it isn't. You don't know what to do. And I didn't tell you. I didn't use any of the hypnotic techniques or gave you any instructions to follow. I only communicated my intent to hypnotise." With a grin, she pointed with her thumb at Dan, who was swaying on his feet, his eyes focused on the watch, just as blankly as when he was frozen.

Khalid started to slowly clap his hands. "Bravo. Bravo, my lady."

She shook her head at him as she lowered the watch. "You don't get to call me that." And then she took the hat from Anton and tenderly placed it back on Dan's head. "Thank you, love. You did so well."

Dan snapped back to reality and after a moment of confusion, he nodded at her with a smile. She gave him back his watch, which he put into his pocket.

Anton let out a long sigh of relief and wiped his forehead.

"My apologies…" Khalid mumbled.

"It's quite alright. I can see how it can be tempting to use the same words as someone else is using. But these are not just words." Octavia crossed her arms.

Khalid nodded and lowered his eyes. "No, I get it. I didn't mean to overstep."

"The same goes for you, big man." Octavia said to Anton. "I am not your lady. I'm just a friendly hypnoDom showing you a good time."

Anton nodded and stood to attention again. "I understand."

Khalid seemed to think for a moment. "So, if I understand you correctly, Octavia, the hypnotic techniques exist for both the hypnotist and the subject, to help them both complete the process. And once both are sufficiently experienced, they can be dispensed with?"

"Not dispensed with," Octavia explained. "They exist because they work. These are proven methods you can use to induce hypnotic trance and create hypnotic effects, even if you are inexperienced at hypnosis. When Dan and I are together, sometimes I will use something technical, because it is the most appropriate method for that situation. It's just that the showy stuff doesn't actually require much skill."

She walked up to Khalid, who was still looking thoughtful, and laid her hand on his shoulder. "There are no shortcuts. But once you find someone you love to practice with, it becomes less of a chore. With regular practice, it takes only a few months to become good. Just like with rope. Mind you, that goes for both partners."

He nodded. "That makes sense."

"Perhaps Dan would like to practice with you and give you some pointers?" Octavia turned to look at Dan.

He blinked for a moment. "I mean, if Khalid would like that, then yes."

Khalid walked up to Dan. "Do you think you could pay attention to the moments when I trip up and help me correct it?"

Dan nodded. "Yes. No problem."

The two men started to chat about hypnosis things they could try together, and Octavia stepped up to Anton and touched his chest.

"It's time, big man." She smiled at him and beckoned him with a small movement of her head.

Anton swallowed again and touched her hand. "Octavia… What if I can't do this?" He hung his head. "What if I'm not smart enough? What if I'm just too ADHD to go into trance? What if I'm just too nervous?"

Her hand reached up to touch his chin and make him look her in the eye. "Do you trust me? Do you want me to hypnotise you?"

A sigh. "Yes, please, Octavia."

"Then I will make sure that we will succeed. I will find ways to help you go into trance for me. I will give you all the instructions. All you need to do is follow me." With a smile, she took his hand and led him away from the bar.

Anton looked back at the other two as she led him away, and they both gave him looks of approbation. It seemed to settle his nerves and he followed Octavia out of the room, grinning with anticipation.

Dear reader, did you like this story? This is the first of a series. Feel free to leave questions here that you would like to ask Octavia if you ran into her in the dungeon, or if you went to one of her classes. And perhaps in the next installment of the Octavia series, she will answer your question.

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hypnofur1 · 6 years

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Captivated in Kansas City (Ch.1)

By Hypnofur

Tuesday at 11:30

Hudson Dark had performed before sold out crowds for over twenty three years. At no time during any of those performances had he in any way shape or form flubbed a word, or even misspoke. He was always so eloquent and confident. It was the root of his talent in fact. But now, as he sat across from the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he found himself completely tongue tied

“It’s the house I live in with my parents” the man in his mid forties told the beautiful woman in front of him. “No, I don’t. I mean, they lived there, we lived there. But now we don’t…” Hudson stammered, for the first time since his teens.

Hailey was trying to look like she wasn’t embarrassed for him. She had seen this before with men. God, she had seen it too many times. She had learned how to be nice about it, but it never became not awkward. Men always became stuttering piles of jelly around her.

“Was this property your child hood home, Mr.Dark?” she asked politely, trying to throw him a lifeline.

“Well, not even. My parents purchased it about twenty years ago. My father died shortly after that, and my mother passed away about five years ago. I only lived here for a year or so after college. Then I got my own place, right away.” He said, trying desperately to make this woman think he didn’t live with his parents for any longer than what was considered normal.

“I see, well, I am sorry for your loss” Hailey said.

“It’s better that she’s dead” Hudson said, before he immediately realized how that sounded. What was wrong with him?!! This had never happened. “I mean, it was a long illness. She’s at peace now” he said, trying desperately to recover.

“Well, Brookside has seen huge growth in the property values over the last ten years.” Hailey said, getting back to business. “We’ve sold six homes in that neighborhood already this year.”

Hudson couldn’t believe she smelled so good too. What was her perfume? It was intoxicating. She was intoxicating.

Hailey was getting annoyed. He was just staring with that lovestruck puppy dog look she had seen so many times since Junior High. She prodded the conversation along “I’d love to see the house?”

Hudson pulled himself together, and arrangements were made for her to come out on the following Thursday. He shook her hand professionally and the meeting ended. By the time he walked out of the door of her Real Estate office, a plan was already forming in Hudson’s mind.

Thursday

“Fuck!” Hudson yelled to himself from inside the house. He watched as a Mercedes SL 500 pulled up his driveway. Yes, the beautiful Hailey was inside, but so was some other guy. He was driving. Hudson was fuming. He figured she would come alone. Who was this guy? Was he going to come in too? That would ruin the entire plan that Hudson had spent the last forty-eight hours carefully concocting. Then he saw the man lean over and give Hailey a kiss on the cheek before only she got out of the car. Hudson’s spirits lifted as he realized that the man was going to stay in the driveway at the very least. He was quite pleased to see the car pull away from the house at the same moment Hailey was ringing the doorbell.

Hudson’s stomach flip flopped, the plan was on!

“Hi Hailey, come on in, it’s open!” Hudson yelled. He knew she would be able to hear him through the glass storm door. The actual front door was left wide open. Hailey entered the house through the living room.

“I’ll be right with you, I’m just changing my shirt. I spilled my lunch on it” Hudson lied from behind the door the down stairs bedroom he was in.

“No problem.” Hailey answered as she looked around the house, judging the bones and envisioning how it could be remodeled and updated. “I’ve had a clumsy morning myself. I drove up on to the curb at The Filling Station Coffee. I damaged my tire. My husband had to give me a ride here. He just went to go check on the car. It’s down the road, he’ll be back in fifteen minutes or so.” She said.

Hudson cursed under his breath. That was not a lot of time. Should he abort? Maybe this whole stupid thing wasn’t meant to be.

“Are you a hypnotist?” he head Hailey ask. She had clearly seen the posters and show memorabilia that filled the house. Of course she did. She was meant to.

“I am, yes” he said, still through the door. He resolved he was going to do this. He could make it work in a shortened time frame. He just needed her to take the bait…

“This piece is beautiful, is it one of those things that musician’s keep time with?” Hailey asked, trying to make conversation as she wondered how long it was going to take this guy to change his shirt.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Hudson celebrated to himself. The three hours he had spent carefully lighting the metronome so that her eyes would be drawn to it had paid off. This was going to work.

“Why yes it is. It is called a metronome. That one is especially precious. It was made by the finest Belgian craftsmen. They are known for making exquisite pieces. The weight on the tip of the pendulam rod is actually encrusted with 24 carrot diamonds. That is why it sparkles like that as the metronome ticks back and forth… back and forth.

Hailey noticed he was right. Her husband’s gifts over the last few years had taught her a lot about diamonds, and she could see from the way those stones caught the light that they were at least 24 carrot.

Hudson continued speaking from the other room. “ I use it in my therapy work. The beauty of a metronome is that not only does it give the subject a motion to follow with their eyes, but the rhythmic sound of the clicks also keeps a perfect, hypnotic beat. The subjects listen to the sound of the metronome as it keeps the perfect beat. This is a special beat. A beat of sleep. The subject focuses on the metronome as it swings back and forth, back and forth. They notice the brilliant twinkle of the beautiful diamonds as the metronome swings back and forth, back and forth. They follow the swinging motion with their eyes, but don’t look away. Never look away. Listening to the beat. The beat is so powerful, because it is the same beat as sleep. Listen to the beat as you follow the swinging motion.” Hudson said to her, slowly changing the POV of his words from that of the theoretical subject, directly to Hailey. By this point, he had slowly and quietly come out of the bedroom and had silently move to the doorway of the room she was in.

He was both delighted and aroused by the sight of Hailey standing in the center of the room, completely transfixed on the swinging metronome in front of her. He could tell it was working.

“With every click of the beat, you begin to notice your eyelids getting heavier and heavier. Heavier and heavier with each click of the beat. Every time you hear the beat, your eyelids feel heavier and heavier. Very good, you are following my instructions and hearing the metronome go back and forth, back and forth. The twinkling lights of the diamond beginning to blur in between the slow blinks of your heavy eyes.”

Hudson noticed her beautiful blue eyes slowly blinking as he suggested. He knew how he wanted to pull her under, there was really only one way…

“Isn’t it pleasant… to sleep…. to sleep… deeper and deeper in sleep.” he said, copying the cadence and tone of his all time favorite movie hypnosis scene, from the “Hypnotic Eye”. In fact, this whole induction, putting her under by focusing on a hypnotic device while he was in another room inducing her was all inspired by the “Hypnotic Eye”. It had been one of Hudson’s greatest fantasies for almost 20 years, since he first found the clip on the internet.

Now he had done it, he had induced the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in the same way that Anton had done it in that movie. Her head was slumped down and she was deep in hypnotic slumber. He felt like a king. He wanted to take her right there, he had never been so hard in his life.

But of course, his victory was short lived, as he heard the Mercedes pull up in the driveway. The husband was back. Hudson held his breath for a moment, so nervous that he may come in. Much to the hypnotist’s joy, he saw the husband pull out an iphone and start checking it. It seemed he was going to be waiting in the car. That bought some time. Not as much as Hudson had originally hoped for, but enough to keep the game alive….

About ten minutes later, Hailey smiled as got into the Mercedes. She gave Henry a kiss on the cheek. “You are the cutest Uber driver in Kansas City.” She joked.

“We Uber drivers don’t accept tips, so you’ll have to buy me lunch instead” Henry quipped to his wife as he backed out of the driveway. “How was the appointment?” he asked.

“Fantastic!” Hailey said exuberantly. “The house is amazing, so much potential. The client is fantastic too. I’m so excited about this transaction!” she oozed.

That surprised Henry a bit. He knew she had been wanting to do less residential work, and more commercial/retail kind of stuff. However, he didn’t pay that weird twist much mind. He was starving, and wanted to get a table at Bella Napoli for lunch.

Thursday evening

“Hey, we don’t have anything tomorrow night, right?” Hailey asked Henry as he was brushing his teeth. She was on their bed, surfing on her laptop. They were always together in the same room when they were home at the same time. They truly enjoyed one another’s company.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?” Henry asked.

“I have a tip on a property that is potentially going to be hitting the in the Power and Light District. It’s one of the venues that hasn’t been updated in the area. It’s a comedy club. Anyway, I was thinking it might be a perfect opportunity for the right investor.”

“And who might be the right investor?” Henry said with a smile.

“Well, he’d have to be handsome…” Hailey said. “And good with wireless technology….”

Henry laughed as he looked in her eyes. God she was gorgeous. Even just sitting there on the bed, she was so beautiful. The slightest look she gave him could get him instantly hard. She noticed now was one of those times. She smiled at him and nodded, as if to say “now is a fine time”.

Henry crawled onto the bed and kissed her. She kissed him back. They both laboriously took off her panties. It wasn’t smooth or easy. He lifted up her skirt a bit, and stuck himself inside her. She gasped a bit, and he started bucking. He came within about 30 seconds.

He instantly apologized. She smiled and kissed him, telling him it “was nice”. He dismounted and laid next to her in the bed, pulling his boxers back up as she got her panties back on. Then they continued their conversation about the property and the plans to check it out on Friday night. This was very typical for the couple.

Friday night

They had a great dinner at Yardhouse, the best of the restaurants in that area. Of course, the young twenty something male waiters were completely infatuated and flustered with Hailey there. Henry and his wife were quite used to this, though it always made them uncomfortable. Hailey hated being the center of attention in a room, despite the fact that she usually was.

After the meal, they strolled around the building a bit, checking it out in detail. Hailey had a fine eye for architecture, and Henry only had eyes for her, so he was perfectly happy watching her do whatever interested her.

It was an older building, probably built in the 1930’s. It needed a tremendous amount of work, but had good bones. There were apartments on the second and third floor, and a theater that was now being used as a comedy club on the ground level. As the couple got around to the entrance, Hailey grabbed Henry’s arm.

“That’s my client!” she said excitedly as she pointed at the poster on the wall.

“Hudson the Hypnotist?” Henry asked.

“Yes, that’s him, the one from the other day in Brookside. Wow, that’s so cool. I can’t believe he is performing tonight. Let’s go watch!” she said excitedly.

Henry was a little taken aback by her sudden exuberance, but he was fine with it. The evening was free. They purchased their tickets and went inside. As they waited for the show to begin, Hailey started going on and on about how much hypnosis had always fascinated her. Henry was quite surprised to hear this, as it had never come up in conversation before, despite her new claims of a lifelong passion for it.

The show began and Hudson came out. He was a very average looking middle aged guy. Balding, slightly pudgy. He explained what hypnosis was, and how it worked. Henry noticed Hailey was on the edge of her seat during this explanation. Hudson then asked for volunteers. It was at this point that Henry became absolutely shocked. Hailey gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then left her seat, heading for the stage.

While Henry had been previously in the dark about Hailey’s interest in hypnotism, he was well aware of her disinterest in being in the spotlight. He couldn’t believe she was going up on stage. This was like her number one fear. What was going on?

Henry could hear the murmers in the crowd as Hailey was taking the stage amongst a bunch of slacker looking twenty somethings. Hudson the Hypnotist of course had his eyes glued to the gorgeous blonde as she took a seat on the stage with her brilliant smile. Henry noticed there wasn’t a hint of nervousness or self consciousness in his wife, even as the dorky guy in the Blink 182 sweatshirt next to her gawked and stared. In fact, Hudson had a hard time getting the attention of the volunteers on stage back to him. Hailey was that distractingly beautiful.

She stuck out like a sore thumb on that stage. Her clothes spoke of wealth, while the t-shirt and jeans of the rest of the volunteers spoke of the awkward years after college. For his part, Hudson knew that he had to regain control of this situation. As a very experienced performer, he knew how to do just that. The spacy, new age music played, and Hudson expertly induced his volunteers into a deep trance. Removing the two or three fakers that were easy to spot, Hudson was left with ten deeply hypnotized volunteers on stage. Not that it mattered, as the show would clearly just be about one of those ten. Most eyes were on Hailey, who was now slumped over onto Mr. Blink 182.

Hudson went through all the standard routines, making the volunteers feel like they were freezing cold, having them talk to Martians, and the whole someone farted routine. Henry was shocked to see his beautiful wife up there on stage, clearly, actually hypnotized. There is no way she would have been going along with this if she hadn’t been.

Henry’s stomach was turning. It was unnerving to see his wife in front of all these people, clearly not in control of herself. His stomach knotted a little more as Hudson asked the crowd if they want to “spice this show up”. Of course, the loud applause confirmed they wanted exactly that. That’s when the hypnotist started describing to the people on stage that they were watching a very sexy porno that was playing in the back of the room. He started saying it was the sexiest porno that they had ever seen, and that they would get so, so turned on watching it.

Henry knew for a fact that Hailey had never watched a porno. She had told him in the past that porno’s creeped her out. And sure enough, as soon as Hudson said this, Henry saw Hailey get all jittery, and try to look away from the back of the room. Hudson noticed it too, and he started saying “the film is too interesting to ignore. Even if you don’t think you want to watch it, the sounds and the visuals are just too interesting. You can’t resist checking it out..”

That was enough to get Hailey to sort of peek over with one eye. Just for a second, then she looked away again. But in another brief moment, she looked towards the screen with one eye again. Then two. Then she watched for a moment. Henry was shocked. Soon she didn’t look nervous, or creeped out by it. She had a look that Henry had never seen before. She had this incredible look of erotic interest on her face as she slowly licked her lips. Then her hand touched her neck. She squirmed a bit in her seat. Henry had never seen it before, but it was the single most beautiful, sexy site he had ever seen. He had never seen Hailey so overtly turned on, so sexual. In fact, he had never seen Hailey turned on at all…

Six years earlier

Breaking into the real estate game had certainly proven to be more difficult than Hailey had intended. In fact, as she sat there, locked in a steam room, she actually had decided to quit real estate and get a job at a retail store or something. She hadn’t realized that the steam room would lock like that. Her cell phone was getting no service for some weird reason. She was trapped until someone came into the house. The problem with that, was that her showing wasn’t for another 24 hours. She had come to the empty mansion in the hills a day early to do a dry run. Frankly, she was starting to freak out.

That’s when she heard someone in the house. It took a lot for her to decide to alert the other person to her captive presence. Being alone with some stranger in a house when her phone wasn’t working was not a safe idea. However, she was getting really scared being trapped in there. She was finding she was kind of claustrophobic. She finally yelled for a help and a man responded. She had really hoped it was a woman…

“I’m stuck in here and my cell phone isn’t working” she said through the steam room walls.

“Yeah, that’s why I am here. There is a small tower at the base of the hill that provides services to these homes. I overloaded it. I saw your car and came to alert you. I’m really very sorry.” The man said. His voice sounded kind at least.

“Do you do work on the tower?” she asked.

“Well, kind of.” He said.

Ok, she thought, I’m trapped here with a not so good cell tower repair guy. “Can you let me out?” she asked. She heard him trying the door.

He jiggled it and jiggled it, but it just wouldn’t work. “I’m sorry miss, but the door isn’t working. I could go and try to find some tools or something.” He said.

“You don’t have any with you?” she asked in almost a panic. She was really freaking out now that she knew she was really trapped in that room. The teak walls seemed to be closing in on her.

“No, not on me. Umm, I could go drive for some help?” he said. He could tell this lady was losing it.

“NO!” she blurted out. “Please don’t leave!” she heard herself say. She had never had a panic attack like this before.

“It’s ok Miss, I’ll stay with you until help arrives or they fix the tower. My name is Henry.” He said.

And so from there, they started talking. Hailey calmed down. They actually talked for hours and hours. They laughed a lot. They really hit it off. In fact, they started falling for each other.

However, there were two things that were not divulged in those hours of conversation. Hailey did not reveal that she was drop dead gorgeous, and Henry did not reveal that he sold his first wireless amplification company for 30 million dollars, and had since started building another, even more successful amplification system. (The testing of which had blown the tower).

Hailey’s beauty and Henry’s money had always been the most attractive thing about each. Both were fairly shy in their own right. Hailey had been turning down men’s advances for as long as she could remember, and Henry had only been attractive to women once they found he was rich.

But when that steam room finally got opened, and Hailey looked at Henry for the first time, he could tell she liked him for who he was. It didn’t matter to her that he was a little bit scrawny, and clearly about fifteen years older than her. She had gotten to know his kind spirit. He stayed with her, laughed with her, and helped her before he knew what she looked like. This was the first man ever that got to know her for more than just her looks. Hailey knew full well that she benefited from her unique beauty, but for the most part had always seen it more as curse.

Henry’s jaw hit the floor when he saw her. She was clearly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in real life. Or on tv or in a movie for that matter. The locksmith that had opened the door thought so too. Henry, couldn’t believe his luck, until he looked down and saw a wedding band on her finger. His heart fell…

“It’s not real!” she said quickly as she saw him notice it. “I just wear it to keep from having guys…” she started.

“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” Henry blurted out.

“Yes!” Hailey said with a smile.

Henry knew that she had mistakenly assumed he was a cell tower repair guy. He had carefully not lied about that during their conversation through the steam room wall, but had also not corrected the assumption. In fact, it wasn’t until he picked her up the next day in his Ferrari that she started realizing he was more than he seemed.

Dinner that night was not in Kansas City, it was in Paris. Six month later, they were married.

Their love was true, and their love was pure. People of course accused Hailey of being a gold digger. That wasn’t the case. She certainly benefitted from the trappings of wealth, but she truly loved Henry, and he loved her. The suggestion that Henry only was with her for the sex couldn’t have been more off base. In fact, the sex wasn’t that great.

Hailey had always been self-conscious about her looks, ironically. Every guy had wanted to jump in the sack with her for as long as she could remember. That made her a little uncomfortable about the whole concept of sex. She wanted to enjoy it more, she just couldn’t really relax and get into it. She always wondered if she was living up to the fantasy, the expectation. Henry, for his part, was a shy man that never felt comfortable with the ladies. He knew he wasn’t much of a lover, and he always wondered if he could live up to the type of lover Hailey deserved. Their mutual insecurities always made their love making tepid at best.

Friday Night

Henry had never been able to drive Hailey wild with lust as this hypnotist had done on stage in front of him as the participants on stage got “really, really into the porno”. Henry had never been more aroused than he was watching his beautiful wife respond to the erotic, hypnotic commands of the maestro. He was jealous, but also rock hard as he watched it.

After the “watch the porno” bit, Hudson carefully segway’d into a “you are in a porno” bit. He told the participants that they were starring in a porno with the sexiest person they have ever seen, and that this person was on their chair and they were to basically fuck the chair. The people on stage were in such a state of arousal at that point from watching the imagined porno that they got right into it, Hailey included.

However, Hudson sensed an opportunity for both a laugh, and a little something for later. He smiled widely to the crowd, and then put his hand on Bethanny’s shoulder. “And to the woman I am touching right now. You’ll find that the sexiest, most irresistible man you have ever seen or known is… Hudson the Hypnotist!”

The crowd went wild! There was laughter and cheers. Hudson played it off to the crowd like a raunchy showman would. “Can you blame me?” he yelled loudly. “I mean, seriously.. can you blame me!?”

Henry could blame him! And he couldn’t believe that Hudson had said that to her. He also couldn’t believe how Hailey was moving. Her hips were slowly and sensually rolling with a sexual fluidity he had never seen. Her head was tilted back she was grinding on the chair, she was clearly lost in a sexual bliss. It was like nothing he had ever seen, and she looked even hotter than he had imagined while doing it. Part of him wanted to stop this, as it was wrong on so many levels, but he had a raging boner that he was quite sure could be seen through his khakis. He couldn’t exactly stand up and approach the stage like that.

Hudson of course knew who Hailey was with that night. He paid careful notice to the fact that the husband hadn’t stormed the stage when Hudson had told her that he was her new sexiest man alive. The feeling of power over the subjects on stage, and the awareness that Hailey thought that she was currently fucking him on that chair, emboldened the middle age hypnotist. Again, he put his hand on her shoulder, “and to the woman I am touching right now. Not only is Hudson the Hypnotist the sexiest, most irresistible man you have ever seen, but he also has the biggest, most powerful, most perfect cock you have ever come across in your life! And that cock is fucking you now! Fucking you now and making you cum! Hudson the Hypnotist is a sexual god who is fucking you and making you cum like no man has ever done!” he said, to less cheers. Some people in the crowd could see he was going too far, but the majority of the group was so turned on by watching the beautiful Hailey orgasm on the chair that they couldn’t laugh or applaud or anything. They were completely transfixed by the scene in front of them.

Henry was horrified, but his heart was beating a million miles a minute. He was so angry, scared, and turned on. There was nowhere else for the performance to go after Hailey’s show stopping orgasm. Hudson got all the parictipants back in line in to their chairs and dropped them into a deep sleep. He told them they would awake refreshed and happy. He also told them that they would find the experience of being hypnotized by him one of the most wonderful of their lives, and that they would desperately want to be hypnotized by him again in the future. With that, he made a joke to the audience about “job security”

When Hailey heard the phrase “…and wake”, her eyes fluttered open. Her hand instinctively ran through her thick blonde hair as she sat up. Her blue eyes took a second to focus with the bright stage lights in front of her, but she soon saw Hudson looking back at her. It was like a jolt of electricity went through her as she lost her breath for a moment. “He’s so gorgeous” she thought, before immediately chiding herself for being attracted to a man that is not her husband. Unaware of the post hypnotic suggestions that were driving this, she found herself quite surprised at her intense attraction to Hudson. She had never gotten like that over a guy before. They always threw themselves at her, but she had never been so magnetically drawn to a man before.

She smiled at him demurely as she walked by him while exiting the stage. She desperately hoped that was not the last time he would hypnotize her. She had loved the experience so much. Stepping down back into the audience, she could feel most of the eyes in the room on her. She was used to that. As per usual, it made her feel uneasy and nervous. As per usual, she focused on Henry to calm her down. However, this time she noticed that Henry looked uneasy and nervous. He was pale and clammy.

“Babe, what’s up?” she said to him. Henry didn’t know what to say. How could he tell her that she was just up on stage acting like a total slut? What would she do if she knew she had just given every single guy in this room a massive boner as she acted more sexual on stage than she ever, ever had with him in the bedroom? Henry panicked.

For the first time ever, he lied to his wife. “Nothing. Nothing’s up. That was really funny. How are you? How are you feeling?” he said, putting on his best game face.

“Oh my god, it was amazing!” she gushed. “I loved being hypnotized by Hudson!” she almost squealed.

Henry looked around and noticed the room was still very much focused on Hailey. He knew he should get her out of there before she realized the state she had the men in. “Do you want to go get some desert or something?” he asked. Hailey never passed up desert. If other women knew how much she indulged in sweets with that body, they’d hate her even more.

Hailey leaned in close and whispered in her husband’s ear. “I’d rather go home. I need you inside of me.” It was the first time she had ever said anything like that to him.

Henry, who was of course so horny already after watching that show, didn’t need to be asked twice. He raced his beautiful wife home and up to their bed. Within minutes, he was thrusting himself inside her. Ramming as hard as he could. He didn’t last long, having been so turned on by the show. However much to his surprise, Hailey actually orgasmed. She had never orgasmed during their love making before.

Henry loved the sounds she made beneath him. He loved the feel of her convulsing in his arms. What a wonderful experience. He knew her mindset was largely due to the hypnotism. He was actually grateful for Hudson’s hypnotic hijinks. In fact, he wondered if the performer could help him experience this sort of sexual intimacy with his wife again. He decided he needed to pay Hudson a visit.

What Henry didn’t know, was that for the first time in her marriage, Hailey was thinking of another man during sex. She was thinking of Hudson. Sexy, powerful, hypnotic Hudson. The sexual god with the biggest, most powerful cock she had ever come across in her life.

Trouble was ahead….

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nailriddenbat · 7 years

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Mayfield | Series - Pt. II

Summary: Max Mayfield and Billy Hargrove aren’t the only new kids to step foot into Hawkins. Meet Y/N Mayfield, Max’s big sister, who’s here to make sure no one messes with her sister.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Mayfield!Reader (SLOW BURN)

Characters: Y/N Mayfield, Max Mayfield, Neill Hargrove, Susan Hargrove, Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington

Warnings: Language, may contain sensitive topics such as substance abuse later on (I WILL GIVE A HEADS UP!)

Word Count: 1.9k

Tags (PLEASE message me if you want to be added to the permanent tag list for any fic/tag list for this particular series, especially if you already asked and I forgot!): @thegirlwhoisintoomanyfandoms @la-fille-en-aiguilles @jj-writes-shit @thebitterbookeater@with-a-hint-of-pesto-aioli @richletozler @royalwolfhard @just-smile-darling @w-ingardiumleviosa @buckysmaingirl @magic-and-timetravel @jupiter-leo @ttrraasshh@somekryptonitewriting @dudee-what @tmalchow @hedabucky @wallacetdog @harringtonhuddle @sarcasticalphaofthelooserspack @kingkenzieo @twelvedacrewoods @onlyalittleteenwolfobsessed @stevieboyharrington @madhatterweasley @captainelsaeverdeen @cupcaitlyn96 @anton-shudders @trashyemonerd @netflix-and-cuddles @earthvsjai @goimaginethiss @inhumanz

A/N: Lots of drama. Questions will be asked. Shit will happen. Billy is an ass. Enjoy, my friends!

This dinner was thrilling.

No really, it was the highlight of your life. Your mother and Neill sat at the heads of the table. You and Max were sitting together on one side of the table while Billy sat on the other. You were sure that no more than fifteen words had been uttered since you all sat down.

“So Billy,” Susan spoke up after a while and looked over at him. “Where will you be going tonight?”

You held yourself back from rolling your eyes at the lame attempt at striking up a conversation. You watched as Billy slowly turned his head towards your mother.

“Out,” he kept it short and sweet.

“Where will you be going out?” Neill decided that it would be a good time to participate in the conversation and you knew it could only go down hill from there.

“I’m going to a party,” Billy muttered underneath his breath.

“I’m sorry, did your forget something?” Neill taunted him. You hated Billy, you really did, but you wanted to get up and punch Neill for how obnoxious he could be.

“I’m going to a party, sir,” Billy glared over at his father.

“Oh!” Susan said with a small smile. She leaned onto the table and looked over you. You knew what was coming next. “Sweetie, why don’t you go with Billy?It’s a good chance for you two to catch up and make new friends.”

“No thanks,” you shot that idea down quickly.

“Left behind your party days huh, Y/N?” Billy looked over at you with that arrogant smirk you hated so much.

You chose to ignore his comment and kept looking at your mother as you spoke, “I will drop off Max to wherever she needs to go and then come back here to finish unpacking.”

“Oh okay,” Susan nodded her head a bit and then the table went silent.

You turned your head and caught Billy staring you down. Your eyebrow arched as you stared back at him, almost challenging him to say anything to you. He didn’t take the bait and instead, pushed himself from the table without another word.

You took that as a cue that dinner had officially ended and looked over at Max, asking her if she was ready to go. She jumped up and ran out to her room so she could get her things.

“I’ll be back later tonight. Don’t wait up for me,” you said to your Mom. You moved to your room to grab your leather jacket and slid it over your arms, pushing your feet into your shoes. You snatched your car keys up and met up with Max in the hallway, who was holding on to a Michael Myers mask.

You snorted and pointed to the mask, “Really?”

“Michael Myers is awesome, Y/N,” she grinned up at you which caused you to laugh and swing your arm around her shoulder.

The two of you moved out to the Challenger and you held the door open for her so she could climb in. Once you were seated and Max was buckled in, you started the engine and pulled away from the house. “Where am I taking you?”

“Just a few blocks. There’s this area that all of the kids hit so I figured I’d run around,” she shrugged her shoulders a bit.

You nodded your head and glanced over at her, your voice soft, “Are you hanging out with those boys that were on the bikes before?”

Max’s face turned red as she inhaled and she quickly shook her head, “No. I don’t have friends here.”

“Okay,” you left the subject alone but you reached over to touch her shoulder gently. “I don’t want you to be afraid of settling in and making friends, Max.”

“I’m not,” she tried to deny it.

“I’m not saying that you are, kid,” you sighed. “But I know this move was hard, especially since I didn’t make it with you, and for that I am sorry. I want you to know that I’m here now though and I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Max nodded her head slowly and reached up to squeeze your hand. “Mom told me about George, Y/N,” she whispered.

You breathed in suddenly and pulled your hand away at the mention of your ex-boyfriend. “We’re not talking about that now or never,” you muttered underneath your breath and the two of you went silent.

A few minutes later you pulled over to the side so Max could climb out and join the rest of the trick or treaters. You told her to have fun and she gave you a small smile before she climbed out, and you watched her for a minute to make sure she would be okay. After a few minutes you pulled away, whispering to herself, “Now let’s go find dear stepbrother Billy!’

You drove around Hawkins for a while, trying to find a house that looked like it was being the host of an unsupervised Halloween party and it did not take you long at all. Cars lined the streets and you could hear music fill the air. Teens littered the lawn as they pushed their way into the house. You brought your car to a stop and took a deep breath. This was the last place you wanted to be, but you had to get Billy alone without Max, your Mom and Neill around.

You left your car and locked it up before you started walking over to the house. You pushed the door open and pushed your way through a group of people, looking around slowly. Mötley Crüe was blasting through the speakers and you took your time walking around the house to see if you could catch a glimpse of Billy. It didn’t take you too long.

He was making his way over to a couple pressed up against the wall. The girl was looking over at Billy with a concerned face as the guy pulled his sunglasses off, staring him down. There were two other guys behind Billy, patting his shoulders and egging on the one in the blazer.

“Yeah. Eat it, Harrington!”

You stepped over just as the girl walked away and stood behind everyone, shouting loudly over the music, “I see you’ve found yourself some cronies, Billy!”

He turned slowly and the other two looked at you with confused expressions, or maybe that was how they always looked. You weren’t sure. The one in the blazer took off and ran after his girlfriend.

Billy glared at you and you smirked.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he practically spat the words at you.

“I came to visit my brother!” you smiled widely.

“Whoa! This is your sister?” One of the guys looked you up and down slowly, causing you to roll your eyes.

“She is not my sister,” Billy growled.

You pouted, “Well that’s not very nice.”

“What do you want, Mayfield?”

“You and I need to have a little heart to heart. Let’s go,” you turned your back to him as you made your way out to the backyard. He followed, without his cronies trailing after him, and you kept walking until you two were completely alone.

You spun around and pushed his chest violently, glaring at him. He stumbled back and breathed in, his eyes lighting up with anger.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” you yelled at him. “You could have killed those kids!”

“You mean Max’s little hick friends?” he started to laugh slowly and held his cigarette up to his lips, taking a slow drag of it. He blew the smoke in your face and you held you breath. “I would’ve been doing this town a favor by running them down.”

“You’re an asshole,” you snapped at him. “Whatever you’ve been doing to Max while I was gone stops now. If I see you even blink in her direction or in the directions of any of her friends, I swear to you that I will make your life a living hell.”

“You’re not gonna do shit to me, princess,” Billy continued to laugh, completely unaffected by your threats. “Why don’t you get back in your car, drive all the way back to California, and stay with George? Oh wait...” Billy gasped a bit and held his hand up to his mouth. “You can’t because-”

Your hand swung back and came in contact with his face as you slapped him hard, the sound reverberating. His face snapped to the side and he slowly turned it back towards you, whispering dangerously, “You’re going to regret that.”

“Not as much as you’ll regret hurting my sister and those kids once I’m done with you,” you spit down at his shoes and he turned away, rushing back to the house.

You stayed behind to get yourself together. You could feel your chest tightening up and you leaned forward, breathing in and breathing out slowly. You kept your eyes shut tight and stood like that for quite some time before you felt good enough to walk back into the house so you could leave.

Duran Duran was playing now and you pushed your way around people to try and find the exit. You jumped back as someone rushed in front of you and you looked over, seeing that it was the guy wearing the black blazer. He had his head down and was rushing for the front door. You followed him, not because you were creepy but because you two were leaving, but you noticed that he seemed to be stumbling over his own two feet and couldn’t get his car open.

You slowly made your way over to him, hearing him mutter under his breath, “Bullshit...doesn’t love me, it’s all bullshit...”

He dropped his keys and cursed, and that’s when you stepped in. “Hey,” you called out to him. “Are you okay?”

He looked up at you and you could see that he had been crying. He looked away quickly and cleared his throat, speaking up a little, “Yeah I’m fine.”

“Okay well you seem a little drunk so I don’t think driving is the best thing for you right now,” you took a step closer to him.

“Trust me, I’m fine. I can drive,” he tried reassuring you.

Something in you snapped and you reached forward to snatch his keys from the ground. He jumped up and yelled, trying to reach forward to grab them but you jumped back.

“My car is down this street,” you said. “Let me give you a ride and you can come back tomorrow to get it.”

Without saying another word, you started to walk off. Whether he followed you or not wasn’t a problem. You had his keys and the world wouldn’t have to worry about a drunk driver.

You unlocked your car and turned your head, seeing that he had in fact followed you. The two of you climbed in without speaking and you drove away.

After a while, you looked over at him and asked, “You gonna tell me your address or not?”

He muttered it under his breath as he gazed out of the window. Silence filled the car again and you focused on driving instead of what had happened to make this guy so miserable.

About ten minutes later, you pulled up a house that seemed pretty empty. “Is this your place?” you asked him.

He nodded his head and without saying anything, not even a proper thank you, he reached between you two to grab his keys and stepped out of the car, practically dragging himself to his front door.

“You’re welcome!” you shouted after him before shaking your head, putting the car back in drive. “Un-fucking-believable,” you cursed as you drove away, the tires screeching as you slammed your foot on the gas.

Welcome to Hawkins, Indiana. Everything here will suck.

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gilles-blaise-westminster · 4 years

Text

Photography in London - Week 9

- Activities

ACTIVITY 1

Before cropping:

Bas Princen, Cooling Plant (Dubai) (2010)

Look carefully at the whole photo – notice everything that is depicted in it and how these different elements work together to create a narrative. What is the photograph of?

This photo shows a cooling plant in Dubai, with a bunch of workers in front of it. It plays on the very graphic lines of the cooling plant and the buildings in the background against the fluidity of the small mounts of dirt and dust and the workers.

I imagine that the people on the photo are either working in the building, or on a construction site that is not on the picture, maybe behind the photographer. I believe they are workers as they were the customary blue overalls that the profession usually wears. They appear to be on a break, maybe on their lunch break (which could be confirmed by their pose, the overall natural lighting and the tints of the sky).

What is the photograph about?

This photograph was created for an exhibition called “Cinq Villes”, for Rotterdam’s fourth international architecture biennale.

As mentioned above, the middle and background play off of the foreground, which gives off some very different vibes. The middle and background show graphic lines, modernity, geometry, solid colours, an urban environment. The foreground is dusty, and looks a lot like a desert. I see this high contrast between these two parts of the photograph as a critic of society, maybe of how the rich are always in the background whilst the poorer workers work on their comfort.

After cropping:

Bas Princen, Cooling Plant (Dubai) (2010)

What is the photograph of?

I decided to go for a very intense crop to change the whole mood of that picture, which I think I managed pretty well. This “new” photograph shows a man, all alone, sitting on the small part of nature that still is, contemplating a huge metal dark wall.

What is the photograph about?

In this photograph, the emphasis is really put on the man. He is the pop of colour in the middle of the image. It is really the first think the viewer should see. His pose feels very lonely, as if he was the last one on a devastated planet.

I really like how the black background shows a huge contrast with the foreground, in maybe all the ways possible: it is very dark (against the lightness of the dust and the blue), it is black (against the light beige and blue), it has very graphic lines, typical of metal sheets (against the fluidity of the nature in the foreground). It also takes the biggest part of the picture whilst still not being the main focus.

ACTIVITY 2

In the first picture with the children eating ice-cream, what is mostly to be noted are how similar they are, as if they were mirrored: the way the eat it, the colour of their tops, their facial expressions. The car in the foreground, the stuffed animal and the lighthouse (far in the background) are interesting as well. I like all the graphic lines in the image.

The second picture is remarkable in terms of colour: the red of the binoculars is reflected in the notebook and in the tail of the plane. The light-blue necklaces are also to be noted. It is hard to really analyse because of how crowded the background is.

I really like the third picture. The perspective is interesting, the contrasting colours are very nice (the more muted colours for the environment and the flashy reds and yellows on his clothes), etc. It’s like the model wears all the colours that his surroundings have. He is also waiting in a room with washing machines, suggesting that his clothes are being washed. It’s as if without the muted environment (the washing machines), the colours could not exist.

The last picture is quite perturbing. I don’t really know what is going on, but I am noting how staged it feels compared to the three pictures that came before. The models are posing, the flag in the background doesn’t feel natural at all. There’s a very clear perspective, as all the straight lines on the ground are pointing toward the upper-right corner of the picture.

Caption 1: “Legend”

This caption draws attention to the clothes, as it is what is written on the model’s t-shirt. This also adds a deeper meaning, as we start wondering about who the model is: is he a legend? Is his life one? Is the photograph one?

Caption 2: “Reflections”

This caption draws attention to the shine of the ground, of the washing machines (metal and glass), of the leather, and to the flash on the plastic sheets on the background wall. The way light reflects on it is very interesting and, when you look at it closely, fascinating. This caption is centred on the lighting.

Caption 3: “Candid Patience”

This caption reflects the model and what he’s doing. He is candidly waiting for his clothes. It is more literal than the two last ones but still not as literal as the one following.

Caption 4: “Young Man Waiting For His Clothes To Be Washed”

This style of caption is very different from the last ones, as it seems quite literal. However, who says that this is what is happening? I like it a lot.

Caption 1: “Industrial Pride”

This caption mainly focuses on the flag in the background and the overall environment. The word Pride today is often associated with the Pride parades, and the pride flag that goes with it. The poses the models have shows the pride, while everything around reflects this industrial point of view.

Caption 2: “Trains”

With this caption, I tried to focus on what’s going on around the picture instead of the picture itself. The clues we get from the composition are the chains, the opening on a huge building behind that white brick hall, there seems to be tracks on the ground. While I don’t know if this really is related to trains, it is what it makes me think of.

Caption 3: “Traffic”

This caption is a play on words. As mentioned above, I imagine this place to be a factory where trains are being built. If you focus on the window that should be open to the outside, we can note that it’s actually been covered in planks, as if the building had actually been abandoned. What the models are doing isn’t specified, but it might be illegal when you see the way the window was blocked out. Traffic then comes into mind, as it works for trains moving and for illegal business.

Caption 4: “Showroom”

This is a caption that should make you consider the environment differently. The lighting feels so fake and too good that it makes me think this might actually not really be a factory but more of a showroom, maybe just a shallow movie set with prompts.

- Deutsche Borse Prize, Photographer’s gallery

Mohamed Bourouissa, Free trade

What is the main message of this artist’s work?

Bourouissa is an artist that mainly wants to criticise colonialism and its effects on society. This reflects a lot with his own background, as he was born in 1978 in Algeria. He photographs about who he is, about people around him (may he know them or not). For example, he treated in one of his series the unemployment problem in Marseille (which is a city known for its big immigrant communities). He also made a series about friendship. All of these concrete examples all would not be if the French had not colonised Northern Africa, so I personally think it is to be considered as a consequence of colonialism.

How is this conveyed? (What techniques is s/he using?)

To get his message across, he uses several media: photography (of course), but also augmented reality, emphasising people being invisible to most. A very important aspect of his photographs are also the model’s insight and participation (which is a thing I personally value a lot). They are an integrant part of how the photograph will come out, and more than by simply being in them.

When one looks at the pictures he produces, the theme is very much about the consequences of colonialism and what came after it. To convey that, he goes for graphic lines, bold colours and strong lighting (may it be natural or artificial).

This is the most striking picture of Bourouissa that we have access on the website. First of all, the subject makes it very clear: it’s police abuse, an unfortunately common sin of our society. The important part of it is the victim, the guy sitting on the ground, as the focus of the image emphasises.

The story this image shows us is very hard and can be seen in its composition. This coloured guy on the ground is getting arrested, but the woman standing to him, on the right part of the frame, is clearly in a position of sadness, as if she had given up in front of so much injustice. It is to be noted that the policeman just next to the sitting guy is black, showing how some will fade in, while some won’t.

The colours are very beautiful. They are probably artificial. Coming from our point of view, a strong warm orangey-red light, and coming from the back, a cold light-yellow light. It shows how the warm side is the “home” side, and that the police are coming from the outside.

These contrasting lights are also reflected in the clothing (and their colours): the two civilians look like they were just taken out of bed, wearing very few and in light colours (grey). The policemen, on the other hand, wear black, combat boots, etc. This contrast is very important, really creating two different worlds, a warm home versus a cold outside.

Anton Kusters, The Blue Skies Project

What is the main message of this artist’s work?

In his series called “The Blue Skies Project”, Kusters wants to represent trauma the best way he can. This is a really heavy theme that is very difficult to represent, as trauma in itself is a very personal thing that is felt differently for each individual.

At the basis of his project lays the story of his grandfather. He nearly escaped deportation in 1943. Kusters though: what if he had been deported? What would he have felt? How would this have been like? Can I find those feelings myself today? Kusters then decided to go to Auschwitz to “investigate”, hoping to find answers, but all he found was the realisation that there were many more camps than Auschwitz: over a thousand, according to him. In order to really get that trauma, all would have to be visited.

How is this conveyed? (What techniques is s/he using?)

To really get that hard feeling, Kusters takes polaroid pictures of the blue sky in each camp. This is heavily symbolic. The polaroid in itself is a media that is very fragile, like the concept of trauma. The images are printed but time can (and probably will) make it disappear, in the same way what we remember of those camps and times is fading away. The subject of each of those polaroid is the blue sky, which is also very symbolic, as it never stays in place, as it is ever-changing. It shows how volatile the image of trauma is.

There are two more aspects to be discussed: the inscription on the polaroid pictures and the presentation overall. On each polaroid, Kusters insisted on blind stamping the number of victims and the coordinates of each camp. This is very contrasting with the principle of the polaroid itself: when blind stamping numbers (or any other thing) into a picture, the picture is marked forever and that information cannot be erased. It’s very interesting: the image of the sky will end up fading away, like our memories, but the number of victims and the exact location will never disappear. It’s like a reminder.

Finally, the presentation is very important. Ruben Samama was asked to compose a 13-year long generative audio piece “which recreates in sound and length the period between 1933 and 1945 when the camps were operational.” This plays a big part on how we can feel the exhibition. In Samama’s words, “It is history being played. […] In single sounds, and one sound being one victim, there is no hierarchy in trauma.” It really is adding one more layer to this already heavy exhibition.

I don’t think there is that much to say about the picture itself, as the work of Kusters is mostly symbolic. It is a simple representation of a blue sky. We can see that it looks typically like a polaroid picture, with a lighter centre and darker areas in the corners. This simplicity creates a real contrast with the heavy theme of the exhibition. We would not think of a blue sky to talk about trauma or genocide.

We get more information with what is underneath than with the image itself. It tells us that 25 people died in that camp. I looked up the coordinates, and they are of a city in the North of Poland (Gdansk), but I couldn’t find the camp associated with it.

The title of the series doesn’t say much: “The Blue Skies Project”. Indeed, that is what the polaroid pictures show, but it doesn’t say much more about the theme of the photographic series as a whole. It is very much needed to gather more information about it to really enjoy it and understand its depths, meaning that the exhibition text is 100% needed.

Mark Neville, Parade

What is the main message of this artist’s work?

With this series, British artist Mark Neville wants to show what life is in the area of Guingamp, in Brittany. He wants to show the real meaning of community and identity through community in this rural area of the North-East of France.

In the case of the little town of Guingamp, the sense of community is enhanced in many ways: the football team, the farming community, the Breton dancers, the baton twirlers, the beauty pageants, etc. It relates a lot to what Brittany really means: a little Britain. There’s an emphasis on the contrast between Brittany and Britain, also pushed forward by the fact the project started when the UK voted out of the EU. Neville thus shows his own sense of community (as he is British) through the mirroring of France.

He photographs animals and shows the complex relationships farmers develop with their cattle, as we all know that the end product is food. Agriculture is a recurring theme of Neville’s photographs. He insists on the importance of sustainability.

How is this conveyed? (What techniques is s/he using?)

There are two different kind of pictures: some look very documentary, unstaged, whilst others show a clear organisation and are staged.

All of his pictures show a person, sometimes accompanied by one or more animals, which helps in translating his point of view.

This picture sits in the more staged category of Neville’s work. It portrays a little girl, probably from a cheerleading team as her pompoms show. Behind her are many dogs, all of the same breed, with a pond. The little girl’s expression is very contrasting to her portrayal: her stare is quite empty, while her clothes are colourful, happy, she has bright blue eyes and blonde hair, but really her expression is almost lacking in a way.

The way the dogs come out behind her is quite weird and I can’t put my finger on how this picture was taken. At first, I thought of a collage, but it seems that there is some wooden installation floating on the pond behind her, which allows them to be almost floating in the air.

On this picture, Neville plays a lot on perspective. The little girl seems to be the point of emergence from where all the dogs come out.

Clare Stand, The Discrete Channel with Noise

What is the main message of this artist’s work?

This series is inspired by Eckhardt’s “Electronic Television” from 1936. She is interested in communication and what makes it possible today, mostly the modern means of communication and how the interpretation of a conversation can lead to many different outcomes.

How is this conveyed? (What techniques is s/he using?)

Her process to construct her series is quite precise. As she resided in France, she asked her husband (who lived in the UK) to pick images from her own archive and to draw a grid on it, cutting it into a lot of squares. Then, he had to put on each square a number from 1 to 10 that would represent a different tone of grey. When that was done, he was to give her the numbers in order on the phone.

This is one of the image Stand recreated after being on the phone with her husband. It is very interesting. First off, the choice of black and white (or grey) is a strategic choice, put up probably to make Stand and her husband’s work easier, but it is also a nod to her inspiration, Eckhardt’s “Electronic Television” (1936), as everything was in black and white at that time.

This image shows very well the complexities of communication. While we don’t know what the original image is like, some parts of it seem… wrong? The way her husband interpreted some “pixels” to be very light do not translate very well on Stand’s recreation of the image. It is as if they were out of place. We can definitely pick up the overall scene, a man sitting at his desk, maybe using a typewriter or a computer of some sort, but it is hard to know more – which completely validates Stand’s point.

In your view, which artist should win the competition? Why?

Personally, I think the winner should be Bourouissa, the first of the four artist I’ve treated. I comparison with the others, I really enjoy how he doesn’t overcomplicate his message. What he shows is instantly striking, whilst much more reflexion is needed for the others.

I also really like the participative aspect of his series, which is something I am also doing in my own photographic series.

- Personal photo

Show yourself (self-portrait)

This photo for me really what I would show as a definition of the word: contrast. I really wanted this picture to show as many contrasts as possible to illustrate a really important thing for me, which is showing your “true colours”, who you really are, and how that real internal person is often very different from the “public figure”.

To do that, I tried to show pain in my facial expression. I want to show on there how much it hurts to have to keep your inner persona a secret, how hard it is to keep for yourself something that you really want out in the world.

I used colours a lot to emphasise this contrast. The red jumper I am wearing represents the outer shell, vibrant and invincible to the world. However, when one looks at the face, you can see many blue highlights (that I achieved by holding my computer underneath my face with a blue plain image showing). As blue is on the opposite of the colour wheel to red, it adds one more contrast in the image.

The last contrast that I included in the image is done with the lighting. This photograph is shot next to my window, with the blinds closed, which produces a very homogenous diffused light. I decided to keep it on my back, and to have a very dark face in general, to again emphasise the contrast between the outer (the back) and the inner persona (the front).

The other two captions I have for this picture that change its meaning are:

“When You Hit Your Toe on the Table”

“Choking”

If I were to crop the picture to change the meaning, here’s what I would produce:

By cutting out the main subject that shows really what this picture was about and turning it sideways, this picture now shows something utterly different. The play with the white, the beige and the red are already very interesting as colours.

The subject could also be very different. This here could be captioned “A Day at the Beach”, and the viewer could see the sand, the blinding sun and maybe a bright red towel.

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depechemodespiritera · 7 years

Photo

Tell Me About It: Dave Gahan – “‘Why is your music so depressing?’ is a really lame question”

The Depeche Mode singer on crappy gigs, addiction and escaping death... twice

Words by David Zammitt Photos by Anton Corbijn

Dave Gahan is stationed in the basement of the swanky Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge. As I wait outside his room in music journalist purgatory, waiting for an interview with some other mag to round up, I’m told that it shouldn’t be long but, well, unfortunately, Dave is enjoying the conversation so much that he wants to keep chatting. Maybe we’ll get on really well too, I think.

When I am finally beckoned in, Gahan welcomes me to the conference room that’s become his office for the day. He is warm, full of smiles, and even offers me a smoothie. Radioactive green, it’s a sign of the journey from Gahan’s dark days in the late ’80s and, well, most of the ’90s. It’s fair to say that the rider requests for a man who’s come through heroin addiction and bladder cancer is a little different these days. With hair slicked back, pencil moustache neatly groomed and a silver skull ring nestling on his middle knuckle, it’s hard to equate him with the 19-year-old Epping boy in the oversized suit who nervously bopped his way through ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’.

Of course, a lot of well-documented water has passed under the bridge since Gahan and Depeche Mode arrived with the synthpop agenda-setter ‘Speak & Spell’ in 1981. Fourteen studio albums is a pretty solid achievement in itself, but when you hear the context of the hurdles that had to be negotiated in order to do so, it pulls the feat into sharper focus. Through ailing health, substance abuse and a couple of run-ins with the law, Depeche Mode have somehow stayed united. Depsite the chaotic highs and creativity-sapping lows, the release of their latest LP, ‘Spirit,’ continues a run of at least one album every four years for the last 35. Impossibly, Depeche Mode have become one of British music’s most reliable forces.

As Gahan speaks in staccato – all full-stops and short and rapid-fire sentences – he flits from topic to topic and I may as well have left my nice, crisp A4 sheet of questions at home, because I barely say anything. Jumping from the band’s recent gig at Glasgow’s Barrowlands to the merits of theatre and the ethic behind Depeche Mode’s ‘depressing’ sound in the first five breakneck minutes, at 54 Gahan is full of energy. But while it can be hard to keep track, Gahan’s passion is the thread that ties our conversation together.

“The Barrowlands is a smelly, dirty old venue”

There’s not many of them left like that. We just played there for BBC 6 Music festival, but we first played there in the early ’80s – someone told me it was 1984. I remember at the time it was pretty heaving. The stage moves a bit because the floor moves a bit. So once it gets going…

It was fun to do that show last week, which was maybe an hour long – much shorter than the two-hour show that we usually do. I got a couple of texts from Bobby Gillespie that said: “perfect time.” For performing, an hour is the perfect time.

We had a beautiful few days in Glasgow. To be in England or Scotland or Ireland and it to be good weather, you actually get to see how beautiful it is, really. And I love the people up there. People in the hotel and on the street – everywhere. Good people!

“‘Why is your music so depressing?’ is a really lame question”

I recently saw the play Buried Child by Sam Shepard. I love all Sam Shepard’s stuff. They’re usually based in the American heartland and what it’s really like – not the American Dream. Buried Child is about a child who wasn’t wanted and ended up being buried in the garden and haunts the family, spiritually. So everything they do for their drunken lives is haunted by that. Some people would say that it’s a miserable story, but stories like that, to me, are real life.

It’s like, the question I’ve had to answer many, many times, is where people are like, ‘Why is your music so doomy?’ First of all, it’s a really lame question, but the answer is always the same – ‘Well, I don’t find it like that.’ I just never have. I don’t. I get that some of the subject matter is quite dark, and musically it can be quite dark, but I’ve always felt that if the lyric was really black and if we were going into some weird, dark place, there’s a melody or a sound or something there that lifts you out of that. Like in a good book, or a film – there’s a story there.

I tend to dwell there quite a lot. And it’s OK because I find that it’s the only place you can find any real light anyway. You’ve got to dig deep because all the surface bullshit – all this stuff [he lifts up his iPhone and shakes it] – is where we seem to waste our time.

“We still care about reviews”

Of course we care. The thing about reviews is that someone told me a long time ago that if you believe the good ones you’ve got to believe the bad. There’s always a bit in both and it’s all opinions.

What I liked about one review I read of the Barrowlands show was that the person was actually reviewing the sentiment in the feeling in the moment, and how they felt. And that was undeniable! If he had said anything else about that night – that he didn’t like my trousers or something – it would have been ridiculous because it was a special night. But they’re not all like that – trust me!

Sometimes someone will give me a newspaper in the morning and we’re off to the next gig, and I know it’s been a shit show the night before, or that it wasn’t quite right. The moment wasn’t really there, and someone’s seen through it. And you read it and you’re still like, ‘Fuck you!’ But they can’t all be gems. Over the years you learn that [once in a while] you have this special feeling and you look around at each other and you’re all floating on air, but most of the time you’re getting through a song and you’re thinking about something else. Well, not most of the time. But quite often towards the end of the show I’ll be thinking about whether there’s room service.

“I remember launching six or seven bottles of wine at the wall because I couldn’t drink it”

There was one time when we made the decision not to tour and that was with the album ‘Ultra’ [1997] because I definitely was not healthy enough to tour. I was trying to convince everybody that I was, and I had all good intentions but, put it this way, six months into the recording of the album, after a big session we did in New York, I went back to L.A. and then stuff happened and I ended up in jail [Gahan was arrested after overdosing on a speedball at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in 1996]. So it really was a good decision.

After that album I think we put out a greatest hits – 1998, I’m thinking. And we did some shows. For me, that was the best and the worst tour we’ve ever done because I don’t think I was in any of those performances. It was all new for me. I was no longer drinking any alcohol or using any drugs and I was like an open wound; a bag of nerves trying to fake it ‘til I made it. I had no business being on the road and I had a few moments in dressing rooms. I remember launching six or seven bottles of wine at the wall because I couldn’t drink it. That was my share and if I wasn’t going to be able to drink it then it was going to go against the wall. While the band were all in the dressing room as well. It must’ve been quite scary, thinking about it. I was not happy at this idea of being sober and that I would have to do this for the rest of my life if I wanted to keep on living. And that’s nearly 20 years ago, which is incredible in itself, although it’s not been without its bumps and bruises along the way. It’s been a real mind opener – much more than any drugs or alcohol.

“Physically, I couldn’t sing for longer than five minutes”

I remember being back at my home in L.A. after being arrested. I got a phone call – and I never picked up the phone – and it was Martin [Gore], kinda angry and kinda pissed off that we were in the middle of recording an album and I was not going to be able to leave Los Angeles for two years. If I got into trouble, I was going to jail. So they carried on working on stuff and then created sessions for when I was allowed out of this place I was in, which I’d checked myself into. I ended up staying there for six months – I was terrified of going back home because I knew what I was going to do. I made some good friends there and I went to the studio with someone who was watching over my shoulder, but it saved my life.

I couldn’t sing at that point. I mean physically, I couldn’t sing for longer than five minutes. And it was not good. There were times when I thought I was good during the first half of the making of that album, but I was probably high. I thought I was Frank Sinatra when I was up at the mic, but listening back it was like, ‘Jesus!’. So they made me work with this amazing vocal coach, Evelyn. She would only work with me – because I was a real scumbag at the time – if I would go to this church with her in downtown L.A. in a pretty rough neighbourhood in Inglewood, somewhere where she would do this thing every Sunday working with the choir. She said: ‘You come with me and sing with the whole group; you’ve gotta be part of a team!’ She was so nice and gentle with me and gave me a lot of her time. She kinda brought my voice back to me. And that album got finished.

“My wife was like: ‘What are you looking at pictures of your tumour for?’”

During the making of ‘Sounds of the Universe’ [2009] I’d not been feeling good. I had no energy a lot of the time. I would have enough energy to do the sessions in the studio and I’d get home at night and say to the wife that I was so tired. I was kind of crashing out at 9 in the evening, and I wasn’t really telling the guys. But then it all made sense when I was diagnosed.

I used to say to, Jen, my wife, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do these shows.’ So then we were in Athens and I was having excruciating pain in my gut. Well, it felt like my gut but it wasn’t. So that night the doctor came to the dressing room, five minutes before we were due on stage. I’d been throwing up a bit – I hadn’t been talking about that. Little bit of blood in my urine – I hadn’t been talking about that. I just thought all these things were wear and tear.

But I got rushed to hospital and while the doctor was doing an ultrasound he looked at me and looked at the screen again. I said: ‘I know I’m not pregnant!’ and he said ‘Well, I see something and I have to get someone else in.’ So I said: ‘What do you see?’ and he said: ‘I see a shadow.’ I’ve heard that in movies. It just so happened that there was an oncologist there and I got on the MRI and they said that they could do the surgery there and then. You have a sac in your bladder and you have another sac on the inner sac, and the cancer hadn’t got through the walls yet. It’s an amazing looking thing! My wife was like: ‘What are you looking at pictures of your tumour for?’ But it looked like a sea urchin with all these alien tentacles! It’s an amazing thing. But if they go undiagnosed and it goes into other organs you’re done, really.

“We seem to be pretending we’re not, but we’re fucking lost!”

‘Spirit’ is more of a social outlook on humanity itself, and we’re lost. We seem to be pretending we’re not, but we’re fucking lost! It’s a bit apocalyptic and bit post-apocalyptic in places, this record; ‘Cover Me’ being post-apocalyptic, ‘Fail’ being now, ‘Poison Heart’ being, you know – ‘You’re the devil and we all know it, but you’re in power!’ And then there are songs like ‘Going Backwards’ or ‘Scum’, which are just horrified at humanity, at ourselves.

Where’s the spirit? Where’s the spirit in really caring? And people say, you know, ‘It’s easy for you guys in your fancy houses,’ but like Martin has said, just because you’ve had some success it doesn’t mean you have to stop caring about what you see and feel. And you do the best you can. The way we can portray how we feel is through music, through art. And ultimately we’re here to entertain you but to maybe entertain you with a sense of reflecting. This is not a record that’s ramming something down your throat. This is not Billy Bragg.

(via Tell Me About It: Dave Gahan – “‘Why is your music so depressing?’ is a really lame question” - Loud And Quiet)

#dave gahan #depeche mode #spirit era

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roadkillevokingemotion · 8 years

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Get to know me uncomfortably well

Heeey I filled out one of those Myspace Survey things for the first time in like, forever~

1. What is you middle name? Pffff

2. How old are you? over 230000 hours :O

3. What is your birthday? Jan. 13

4. What is your zodiac sign? Capricorn~

5. What is your favorite color? black

6. What's your lucky number? seven

7. Do you have any pets? yeees

8. Where are you from? THE INTERNET

9. How tall are you? short

10. What shoe size are you? same as my girlfriend half the time

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? too many

12. What was your last dream about? I don't quite recall, probably like, wandering in/around a school/town. Not alone though :D

13. What talents do you have? Art'n'smarts

14. Are you psychic in any way? I don't know, and I don't know if I believe in traditional psychic phenomena

15. Favorite song? At the moment, Run Away With Me by Chaos Chaos

16. Favorite movie? Hmmm Silence of the Lambs is up there.

17. Who would be your ideal partner? A gopher in a ball gown.

18. Do you want children? Not yet.

19. Do you want a church wedding? Fuck nooooo

20. Are you religious? Not really, no

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? Yap

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Nyap

23. Have you ever met any celebrities? Not really X3

24. Baths or showers? Yes. Both.

25. What color socks are you wearing? Not any. But probably grey ones, when my feet get cold. Right about now.

26. Have you ever been famous? No, and I'd rather avoid it thanks <3

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? OMG MAYBE I AM PSYCHIC

28. What type of music do you like? Too many kinds to list :o

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Yas :D I love it

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Like 6-8

31. What position do you usually sleep in? On my side/back

32. How big is your house? It's not "my" house but my home is 1900 sq ft? Biggest home I've lived in :O

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Coffee~

34. Have you ever fired a gun? Yas!

35. Have you ever tried archery? Yas :D I have a 25 lb recurve bow

36. Favorite clean word? cremains

37. Favorite swear word? fuck / cunt / slit wizard

38. What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep? pushin' 32, my kung fu is weak

39. Do you have any scars? o yah

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? lol I don't know, they were a secret

41. Are you a good liar? So/so.

42. Are you a good judge of character? Yeah, but people are always a puzzle.

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? Haha, kind of, not really :D

44. Do you have a strong accent? Not that I know of, but I can't tell XD

45. What is your favorite accent? I don't particularly have one :D I do love accents and language though

46. What is your personality type? "quirky"

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? :O I dunno! probably my strap on, when the kit's all together, hurhur

48. Can you curl your tongue? ayuh

49. Are you an innie or an outie? innie

50. Left or right handed? roight

51. Are you scared of spiders? not generally but I've been known to startle easy, spiders or no

52. Favorite food? mmmm yes. coffee. I don't know. fried food.

53. Favorite foreign food? Sushi, when I can eat it, I can't have soy! Or a nice curry, I love Thai~

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Half way in between :D I've gotten so much tidier as an adult, but it still gets away from me if I don't focus on it

55. Most used phrase? WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB. (No, idk. Probably "But what do I know?")

56. Most used word? "but"

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? Anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes.

58. Do you have much of an ego? Fuck that's a hard question, 'cause even if I say "nah, not like I used to," is that not my ego speaking anyway? Ha

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Bit of both, more bitey I guess

60. Do you talk to yourself? Sometimes!

61. Do you sing to yourself? Oh yeah.

62. Are you a good singer? I'm okay :D

63. Biggest Fear? Losing my loved ones, losing my hope <3

64. Are you a gossip? A bit! "I'm extremely judgemental, I just don't hold it against anyone."

65. Best dramatic movie you've seen? Ooh, dang. Uhh. Silence of the Lambs? lol

66. Do you like long or short hair? All :D

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? Yes! Will I? No!

68. Favorite school subject? Creative Writing :D

69. Extrovert or Introvert? I guess I'm that stupid "ambivert" middle ground thing. Being around people only recharges me if it's stimulating, which is rare. Otherwise, it exhausts me and I have to spend a lot of time alone recharging and realigning myself.

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Noooo that sounds so cool though!

71. What makes you nervous? Being unable to find/understand another person's motivations.

72. Are you scared of the dark? Nah :) Not anymore.

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Sometimes :) Generally only if they've asked me to.

74. Are you ticklish? >:( NO AND DON'T TRY IT

75. Have you ever started a rumor? Haha, not intentionally XD

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? Sort of :) Assistant manager under an incompetent boss meant carrying their job.

77. Have you ever drank underage? O yah.

78. Have you ever done drugs? *looks up from doing drugs, coughs* ...what?

79. Who was your first real crush? First REAL crush was whatshisface. I had that for a long time.

80. How many piercings do you have? Hmmmm, technically eight, but one has closed up. Two in each ear lobe, one in each nipple, septum, and closed vertical labret. I could probably open it again if I tried.

81. Can you roll your Rs? If my mouth isn't too dry XD

82. How fast can you type? Roughly 100 wpm.

83. How fast can you run? Not very fast 8D

84. What color is your hair? Currently, kinda blonde brown. Gonna dye it black soon.

85. What color is your eyes? Hazel-y.

86. What are you allergic to? Not allergic, but digestively intolerant to soy and cow's milk.

87. Do you keep a journal? Nah, but maybe I should.

88. What do your parents do? One of them is not alive and the other one is homeless afaik?

89. Do you like your age? 27? It's pretty cool. I like the 7 part. It's just occurred to me that I'm almost 30, but that's not really bothersome, just weird.

90. What makes you angry? The weirdest things. When I'm hungry/tired, EVERYTHING. Otherwise, cat food science, bad coffee, and whiners.

91. Do you like your own name? The one I gave myself, yes. The one I was born with is weird and can go away.

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? I think Anton is a really pretty boy's name. And I had a great grandmother named Celestine.

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? It doesn't matter to me :)

94. What are you strengths? I'm really resilient, and have hard lines for how I'm treated by others. I'm funny and fun to be around.

95. What are your weaknesses? I'm not always strong on my boundaries when I care about others, and can give too much of my energy caring about them without focusing on myself. Sometimes I can be moody or cold when I'm realigning my priorities.

96. How did you get your name? I named myself Cat because I am such a cat. Not in a weird otherkin way, just that calling myself Cat allows me to embrace the parts of myself that I once considered hard to love: my finickyness, my occasional resistence to physical touch, and my random bursts of creative excitement about playing with dead things. My last name, Waisenkind, roughly means "orphan" in German. It's a sad word, but I like how it sounds like "wise and kind," which are attributes I strive to embody.

97. Were your ancestors royalty? Haha, who knows? Who cares? Inbred strangers!

98. Do you have any scars? Quite a few :)

99. Color of your bedspread? I have more blankets than pillows. Maroon/gold/grey/purple?

100. Color of your room? The walls are white, but the curtains/headboard are maroon :)

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frostytherobot · 8 years

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here i wrote a shitty wwdits fanfic about deacon comforting stu and i can’t put it on ao3 because i don’t have an account so HERE

i’m the worst writer ever

“That must be Nick and Stu!” Viago exclaimed from the kitchen as he heard a rapping at the door. It had been almost a week since the two had last come over to spend time with their friends in the flat, and a few days since the last full moon. Stu would have recovered from his last bout of lycanthropy and would be up for another hangout session with the other vampires. He pulled off the rubber gloves and set aside the sponge and towel he was using to clean the table, rushing into the hallway to meet the pair at the door.

Viago smiled as he pulled the front door open and set eyes on his two friends. “Nick! Stu! It’s good to see you! Come in, you two!” he added, making sure Nick would be able to enter the house. Unfortunately the rules apply to even the houses of other vampires. What a pain.

“Hey everyone,” Nick said. He entered and Stu trailed behind almost reluctantly as the other two housemates came down the hallway to greet them at the door and usher them into the living room as they usually did when the pair arrived at the house.

“How have you two been this past week?” Viago continued to question as they all took seats, Nick flopping himself down on the couch next to Vladislav and Viago while Stu took a seat next to a lounging Deacon opposite the other three. “We haven’t seen you since last Thursday night.”

“Everything’s been going alright on my end,” Nick answered in his casual tone. “Just been doing the usual, y'know. Going to bars, getting victims. Just the usual.”

“You haven’t been turning anyone into vampires again, have you?” Vladislav interjected.

“Oh, no. No.” Nick gave Vlad a look. “I remember what you all told me. I’m not an idiot.”

Vlad was going to say something, but decided to let it slide. “How about you, Stu?”

“Yeah, how was the full moon?” Deacon asked.

The color from Stu’s cheeks had disappeared, and he avoided eye contact with everyone in the room, including Nick.

“Fine,” Stu replied. He scooted away from Deacon.

“Did anything cool happen this time?” Deacon continued his questioning.

“…No.” Stu had never been one to talk much, but his single-word answers put everyone in the room at unease. He turned his head towards the doorframe in an attempt to keep the vampires from looking at his face.

The three flatmates turned their gazes to Nick instead, hoping he’d have an answer for Stu’s behavior. He shrugged and shook his head.

“Hey, Stu?” Nick said, “You’re acting kinda weird, mate. You wanna tell us what’s going on?”

Stu glanced at Nick from the corner of his eye before turning his gaze back into the hallway. “Nothing’s going on,” he replied curtly.

Viago frowned. “Did something happen during the full moon? Something with the other werewolves?”

Stu furrowed his brow. “No,” he said. “Nothing happened,” he lied again, his frustration growing. He wished his friends would get off the subject.

“You have to tell us what’s going on, mate, or we can’t help,” Nick added.

“I told you, nothing is going on. Could you drop it?” Stu replied. He stood up and began to leave the room.

“Stu, come back,” Viago said, trying to keep him from leaving.

“Stu–” Vladislav began to call after him, but was interrupted.

“I said nothing happened!” Stu turned and snapped at them, his eyes glowing yellow and mouth snarling. He blinked a few times, his eyes returning to their normal shade of blue, and, realizing what had just happened to him, darted into the hallway and out of the house, the door slamming behind him.

The four remaining friends sat in silence, looking at each other and wondering what could possibly have happened to Stu during the full moon.

“We should go talk to him,” Viago said, finally breaking the awkward silence and standing up to head towards the door.

“Not all at once,” Vlad countered. “You saw how he stormed out. He will end up running away from us again.”

“Yeah, and we can’t risk him turning into a werewolf when it’s not a full moon,” Nick added. “I’ve talked to Anton, and he says it’s not good for ‘em to do that. Wears ‘em out and can hurt 'em more than on full moon nights.”

“So what do we do?” Viago questioned.

“Well, it’s obvious. One of us is going to have to bring him back here so we can talk to him,” Vlad answered. He got up as well and made it into the hallway before the others stopped him.

“Wait, why do you get to go talk to him?” Nick asked. “He’s my best friend, I should go.”

“Nick, I don’t mean to sound rude, but… Well, you’re not exactly the best at comforting people,” Viago said, hoping he hadn’t hurt another of his friends’ feelings.

“Yes, you never help to work out problems,” Vlad added, “you just try to distract others from what’s going on and nothing gets solved. That’s why I should go.”

“You’re not that good at comforting others, either, Vladislav.” Viago turned to face the other vampire in the hall, his hands on his hips.

“Why do you say that? I’m great at comfort,” Vlad retorted, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest.

“Tough love isn’t exactly comfort,” Viago said. “It doesn’t work most of the time, and quite frankly comes off as mean.”

“And what is it that you do, Viago? You just coddle everyone if they’re having a hard time and never let them have a chance to deal with it themselves,” Vlad raised his voice.

“You don’t have to shout!” Viago exclaimed.

“Neither do you!”

“Would you all just shut up?!” Deacon said, stepping between his friends and finally speaking up after watching the scene get out of hand. “This is about Stu. Not whatever bullshit minor things you hate about each other.” He turned his back from the scene and began to walk for the door.

“Where are you going?” Viago said, beginning to walk after Deacon, who now had his hand on the doorknob.

“I’m going to talk to Stu.” Before the other three could get a word in edgewise, Deacon slammed the door behind him.

Luckily, Stu wasn’t too far away. In fact, he was only sitting on the steps to the porch, arms crossed and perched on his knees, faced pushed into his forearms. Deacon carefully took a seat next to him.

“Hey,” Deacon started, turning his head towards Stu, who turned his head away in response. There was silence for a moment. “You heard all of that inside, didn’t you?”

Stu nodded, still not looking at his friend.

“They just want to make sure you’re okay.” Deacon crossed his arms against his chest as a gust of cold wind blew across the porch. He should’ve thought about grabbing his jersey.

“Well, I’m not,” Stu finally said, breaking his silence. “You all figured that out already, though.” He pressed his face further into his forearms and stared at the waning moon and the clouds that partly shrouded its reflected light.

“You aren’t exactly the best liar, Stu.” Deacon said with a half smile. “Listen,” he started, planting his feet firmly in front of where he sat and leaning forward, “I know you don’t want to talk about what happened, but it isn’t good to keep all of these things locked inside you, understand? It is bad for the brain.”

Stu turned his gaze to Deacon. “Yeah, I guess it is.” He drew in a deep breath and removed his face from his arms and confessed. “I killed someone.”

Deacon raised an eyebrow. “…That’s it?”

Stu frowned and turned away from Deacon again. “That’s why I didn’t want to bring it up. None of you would take it seriously.”

“No, you misunderstand, Stu.” Deacon shifted on the step. “It’s just that you’ve killed someone before.”

“That was different. That guy was going to kill Vladislav, I couldn’t sit and watch that guy murder him.” He lowered his voice. “Especially since he was just trying to protect me. This time it wasn’t defensive.”

“So you feel terrible because of this?” Deacon asked.

“Yeah, I kind of just said that,” Stu said, a bit irritated.

“Do you want me to tell you something?” Deacon said, dropping his volume. “I felt bad about my first kill, too.” He uncrossed his arms and shifted his body to face Stu fully. “It was a girl from the town near Petyr’s castle. She was leaving for a different town a few days over to sell wares like I used to.” He looked up at the sky. “Obviously, she didn’t make it there because I had eaten her. I went back to Petyr’s castle upset with myself, but do you know what Petyr had said to me?” he asked.

“Hm?” Stu answered.

“He had said, 'You are a vampire. You need blood to live. This is not a question of morality, but of survival.’ But he had said it to me in Polish, which I don’t think you can understand. Can you?”

Stu shook his head. “But I’m not a vampire, Deacon.” He said. “I’m a werewolf. I don’t need to eat people to live. It’s not about survival for me.”

“But it is not something you can control,” Deacon reminded him. “I cannot control the fact that I need blood to live. You cannot control what happens during the full moon. Either way, we might kill someone in the process.”

Stu was silent, pondering what Deacon had said. He was right. This wasn’t something he was going to be able to control. At least not well.

“I have a question for you,” Deacon said, breaking the silence between them. “You have talked to the other werewolves about this, yes?”

“Not really,” Stu answered. “They seemed to play it off really casually. I woke up with someone’s upper body next to me and all they had to say was that they were glad it wasn’t someone they knew.”

“Maybe you should bring up your feelings to them, yes? They are supposed to be your pack, and to help you out with your werewolf-ness.” Deacon twiddled his thumbs. “After all, this is the first time this has happened. I am not a werewolf, as you know. I do not know how to deal with it from a werewolf’s point of view. But they are your pack, and they can help where I cannot.”

Stu nodded, and Deacon rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“This reminds me of the time we all thought you were dead,” Deacon added, smiling slightly. “Nick was taking it rather hard. I sat with him and told him how you would have wanted to die in a cool way, like being attacked by werewolves.” He laughed a bit, and Stu gave him a confused look. Deacon continued, a bit more seriously. “We all missed you when we thought you were dead. You are very important to all of us.”

“Thanks, Deacon,” Stu said. “I appreciate it.”

“Do you feel better from this?” Deacon asked.

“Better than before, yeah.”

“Then let’s get you back inside. We can get you one of your beers from the fridge.” Deacon stood up and offered his hand to Stu, who took in and pulled himself up from the steps on the porch.

Viago, Vladislav, and Nick all scurried away from the door before Deacon opened it and ushered Stu back inside, one hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Oh, Stu, you’re back!” Viago said, trying to brighten the mood.

“We were starting to worry about you. We thought maybe we pushed you too far.” Vlad said, looking at Viago and hoping that was the right thing to say. Viago nodded.

“You okay, man?” Nick asked, sincerity permeating his usual nonchalant tone of voice.

Stu looked at Deacon. “Yeah, I’m alright now.”

Deacon smiled and patted his friend’s back. “Let’s get you a beer, Stu.”

#what we do in the shadows #fic #uuuugh bad

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blschaos3000-blog · 4 years

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Its 12:02 am dark/cold/Pinky and the Brain

Welcome to “8 Questions with…..”

I have been Twitter friends with our next guest,Dr. Evil for a quite a while now. Oh,did I say “Dr. Evil”,I meant Dr. Discord….seems that Dr. Evil went to a convention and discovered that a lot of copy cats had taken his name. Instead of unleashing his minions and hiring the cheetah to reclaim his title,he simply changed his name to Dr. Discord. A few months ago,the cheetah and I were guests on Dr. Discord podcast,”A Necessary Evil” and had a great time. In fact I loved it so much that I tapped into my former life and started to book a few folks on his show,I’m hoping to one day become a minion. Kenny’s family is his pride and joy,whenever he mentions them,you can feel the love and devotion he has for them all. In fact his wife has been known to plan some good evil doings in her own right. Just think of them as the anti-Incredibles with a lot less monologuing. The one thing I really love about Kenny is that he stays in character,he really is Dr. Discord and having discussions with him is quite a hoot. He is a very generous host,a hell of a editor and smart as a whip. His podcast is gaining some serious steam in terms of listenership and guests,during this COVID-19 lockdown,the cheetah and I urge you to check the good Doctor and learn to embrace your inner evil….links down below. But for now,lets go quiet as Dr. Discord answers his 8 Questions…….

Please introduce yourself and tell us a little of your background.

Hello, I’m Kenny Ketchens, although most people probably know me as my villainous alter ego , Dr. Discord. I’m a proud father of 5 minions ranging in age from 24 down to 6. I’m a Data Analyst/RPA Developer for a 3rd party logistics company during the day and at night I educate the world on the finer points of being a villain.

What was growing up in your home like? What are your three favorite memories growing up?

Growing up we moved around a lot. I remember really enjoying how freeing it felt to be young and knowing ahead of time you’d be moving again soon. It really changes your perspective on things. I’d have to say all of my favorite memories growing up involve my father, whether it was helping him work on cars, or watching him make things from wood. It seemed like there wasn’t anything he didn’t know how to do and it inspired me to learn all I could and try to replicate that for my children. He always told me growing up to learn to do as much for yourself as possible. We’re human, specialization is for insects.

How old were you when you became a fanboy and what were your three favorite comic books to collect and why?

I was in my early teens when I got ahold of my first Comic, Green Lantern. I was hooked from then on. What could be more awesome than a power that would let you manifest whatever you could imagine into reality! Hal Jordan is the epitome of a hero in my eyes. Green Lantern led me to the Justice League which led me to Batman and by far the best assortment of villains in any fandom. I could really empathize with the likes of Joker, Penguin, and Riddler. They were just ordinary people that life happened to and made choices and stuck to their decisions. It really stuck with me that odds were that I could more easily become the Riddler than a member of the Green Lantern Corp.

Why is evil necessary in today’s world?

As cliche as it is to say, evil serves as a means to highlight the good. If nothing bad ever happened to you, would you ever really realize how good you had it? We need those lows to appreciate the highs, dark to notice the light, and so on. Our perception in general is based on comparing things to other things. So in a sense we’ll always need evil.

Who are your three most iconic villains ever?

The Joker especially the Heath Ledger Version of The Joker in the Dark Knight. Such a powerful and Iconic Character.

Dolores Umbridge From Harry Potter, I think we all know someone similar in our own lives who lets the power they have go to the head.

Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men. Having your fate decided on a coin flip is such a terrifying concept for me. No chance for bartering or pleading, just chance.

How did you get into podcasting?

Great question!!! Minion #5 my 9 year old wanted to be a youtuber. So being the supportive father I set up a channel and showed him how to make videos. It was his idea so I wanted him to be in control. I didn’t want to do it for him. He quickly decided it was too much work to make the kind of videos he enjoyed watching. As we were driving in the car I was listening to a podcast and he remarked that we could do that instead. He said it had to be easier since it was just sound and I probably already had stuff for it from being a musician in my younger days. He came up with the idea that we would talk about bad guys. They were an underrepresented group in his opinion. The first iteration of the show we mainly talked origin stories, powers cool story arcs of comic book villains and then it gradually turned into what it is today a resource for creative people to flesh out their villains more and a way for people to embrace that villainous side that we all have.

What do you look for in a topic or in a guest besides their being somewhat evil?

I mainly look for an opportunity to explore something from a different perspective. One of my favorite episodes started on the premise of common themes of the supernatural in pop music and ended up in discussion of why vampires are mostly portrayed as sexy and not werewolves or other supernatural creatures. Often I have writers come on and give their advice on handling antagonists and I get to learn something at the same time the listeners do. It’s just about having fun and maybe learning something new at the end of the day.

What three guests have impressed you the most and why?

I am in awe of the prowess that Jabe Stafford has when it comes to writing villains. He has the best tips and tricks to getting the most out of your villains.Danny Decellis came on the show to talk about Villains in Medieval Literature, I was expecting monsters like Grendel and such but I was surprised to find out it was more long the lines of people with low morals. Cowards, traitors and the like. Ami Mercury is another favorite, She came on to talk about morals in relation to professions. I learned a lot from her. They were all wonderful to talk with and I hope they came back on the show again at some point.

Can you walk us through on what goes into making a episode of your show,the nuts and bolts of it?

For the majority it’s as simple as sitting in my chair, hitting record and rambling. Then cutting out bits that veer off and don’t go anywhere or that don’t fit the topic. Some have some research like I did an episode on villain trends in movies of the last 50 years. So I had to look up data from a lot of movies and compile the data and see what trends began to emerge. For interviews I try to just keep it casual and informal, more conversational than just Q&A and I feel it serves me well. It’s a lot of just winging it. I like to fly by the seat of my pants and see where I end up.

How do you define “evil”?

Evil is quite a subjective term and the standard definition of being amoral doesn’t help much either. From my perspective evil is selfish. Doing things for yourself. Looking at things from this perspective shines an entirely different light on lots of things. People giving to charity just to boast about it on Social Media, Evil. Youtubers adopting disabled pets for likes and subscriptions, EVIL. Setting your kid down in front of a tablet so you can get things done or peace and quiet, EEEVVVVIIILLLL!

If you could interview anyone,fiction or non-fiction…who would they be and why?

Jensen Ackles because my wife absolutely adores him and I’d let her listen while I was recording but cut her mic so she couldn’t talk so i could gloat about interviewing him forever! How’s that for evil!

The cheetah and I are flying over to watch your latest film but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide,what are we doing?

First, We are hitting the Amish Deli and getting fresh Sasparillas, then we are heading to Gettysburg and taking a quick tour of the battleground. Perhaps even a Ghost Tour if you’re up for it. As the sun sets it’s dinner time at the Copper Kettle if your in the mood for something fancy or the Flamingo if you’re in the mood for a burger.

I like to thank Kenny for taking time off his plans to conquer the world and talking with us. I’m including a recent episode of his podcast which Dr. Discord chatted with film director Brendan Steere and producer Jesse Gouldsbury of the kick ass film “The VelociPastor”. Plus there are 88 more top of the line episodes to listen to as well. You can find the website for “A Necessary Evil” here.

You can follow Dr. Discord on Twitter.

If you’re new to the blog,you can catch up on the “8 Questions with……” interviews by going here. Feel free to leave a comment.

8 Questions with……… Dr. Discord of “A Necessary Evil” Podcast Its 12:02 am dark/cold/Pinky and the Brain Welcome to "8 Questions with....." I have been Twitter friends with our next guest,Dr.

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orgone0123 · 6 years

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The Magick Of The Future – Radionics by Karl Welz

A Gigantic Step into the Future !!! Wilhelm Reich and Franz Anton Mesmer 150 years before Reich invented accumulators of life force, devices that accumulated life force from its surroundings. Masemer called this energy “animal magnetism,” Reich called it “orgone.” In 1991, I invented the generator of life force (Orgone Generator®, Chi Generator® or Prana Generator®) the first device on the planet that actually generates life force. One year later I invented a very effective material that accumulates life force (chi, orgone, prana, mana), and I called this material orgonite®. Any type of Magick known to us can be explained easily as being a Technology, and this Technology is based on the science of Life Force, or Orgone Energy! You certainly can use your Orgone Generator® to help you achieve more powerful and reliable results

towards Self-Improvement

when practicing Sports, Fitness, Body Building or to help others towards Manifestation of Your Deepest Desires in Leadership, Charisma and Politics for yourself or for others in Business and Profession for yourself and to help others to Achieve the Overall Success you always wanted And Much More !!! It certainly is important that you get involved in this extremely easy to master technology before your competitor or opponent decides to do so. In fact,

It’s fun, it’s exciting, and you certainly can be laid back and relax while you expect assured success!

1. Welcome

to this new publication, which is an introduction to the technologies of Action at a Distance, or AAD. I like to call it Magic of the Future for reasons, which I am going to explain in a few minutes! In other words, this is not just another introduction into what most people think is “magic” nor has it much to do with the run off the mill book of “magic” where at first you find some talk about what the author thinks is the spirituality of magic, then maybe somewhere between pages 10 and 20 the tree of life, and after that some quite elaborate descriptions of rituals, magical sigils, or symbols, magical chants, magical ceremonials, and so on. Magic existed long before the invention of the tree of life or any other esoteric system, secret or otherwise. In fact, secrecy, as practiced by many magical or esoteric lodges and religious groups quite often is a very effective method of brainwashing followers into rigid principles of some pre-conceived and improvable doctrines and at the same time making them believe that the typically very limited set of instructions and knowledge that they offer is the ultimate wisdom. And quite naturally this type of approach does not just happen in so-called spiritual circles, as I am going to point out later. In fact, most of the powerful magicians on our planet do not even know the tree of life. Such “lack of knowledge” does not inhibit their power at all. It does this as little now as it did in the past, long before the invention of the tree of life, which is but a relatively primitive attempt to explain the vast set of human experiences. An explanation, which evolved according to the mode of thinking prevalent during the time when this model was created, namely the middle ages. At the same time, though, this model can be a very powerful method when used magically. The problem only arises if such “universal symbolisms” are understood as mappings with the help of which one can explain “all there is.” Such an approach, in fact, is just as primitive as is the approach of so-called “modern physicists,” who assume that they can explain “all there is” based on one type of energy they know relating to time and the never-proven assumption that the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe. In fact, we are going to work with several known forms of energy – and I am making the assumption now there are many more forms of energy, and primitive humans simply are not even aware them yet, cannot be aware of them.

My intention with this publication is to teach you much more than what most people think of “magic” and furthermore (1) To show you that action at a distance is a way of interacting with the environments, not more and not less, and as such it is a characteristic of just about all living beings as we know them. The word “distance” refers here to characteristics of electromagnetic energy. Many persons, present and past, like and liked to use the word “magic” when referring to this kind of AAD, and for this reason I have decided to call this course “magic of the future.” (2) to make you aware of the fact that most of us have been “educated” out of skills that we naturally possess, and, most importantly, (3) that this AAD, or call it “magic,” if you like so, is extremely easy to acquire, or re-acquire. Not years or decades, as some of those “secret (oc)cult lodges” with their religious approach try to convince their followers, but a mere few weeks. Moreover, during these few weeks you are gaining the evidence as you practice, and there certainly there will be no requirement to follow “secret doctrines,” to become members of some religious outfit, of some “secret order” or the like, or to go through some pathetically strange cult-initiation rituals. This means that the main focus of this course is on practical experience and easy to understand theories, or mappings, which then naturally can lead you effortlessly to new and increasingly powerful methods as you are practicing action at a distance, for the purpose of helping others and, most importantly, to put your own destiny into the best possible hands, which are your own, of course! I am talking about methods of which many of these “orders” or other cults, religious outfits and the like never have even been aware … this unawareness being a result of their restrictive and limited setups. – You can call them LLC’s –ludicrously-limited-cults.

http://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html

Before I go into the main subject of this course, a small note, and you may well skip it and continue with the next video: As far as this and other systems are concerned, the purpose of which is the explanation of things that exist, especially when laying claims of being capable of explaining it all, I have to say the following: For millennia there were humans who made serious attempts of explaining all that they perceive and to correlate it all. Most of them thought that with their primitive thinking combined with a few tools they can explain all there is, and this includes many scientists, ancient and modern ones, as well as “wise ones” who “channeled” such wisdom – and this “channeled wisdom” usually was suspiciously similar and close to the religious system into which those “wise ones” were born – something being a derivative of the respective system. In a similar way, scientific structures relate well to the socio-economic-cultural background and related linguistic structures into which the scientists were born. Whenever their mappings proved to be useful, technologies were expanded and some times even new technologies emerged. Usefulness, though, is a far cry from the “absolute truth” which the persons, who are proffering such mappings, claimed over and over again. What I am going to present in the following is a modern mapping of magic, which I am putting on a scientific basis. It has already proven its usefulness, because I could derive a vast amount of new methods from it. At the same time I am hoping it will be replaced soon by something new and more useful. Quite often there is talk about some “objective truth” which is then rooted in primitive human principles of abstracting and relating abstractions to each other, which are perceived by the people proffering such things as something “absolute.” On a lower level this is Aristotelian thinking, and on a more advanced level non-Aristotelian thinking or general semantics. Well, being a human as well, I am using such methods, but I am well aware that usefulness and not a claim of being capable of explaining it all is the goal. This means, that, when developing one or more theories or mappings, the natural development of new technologies or methods of interacting with our environments and some type of being comprehensive in explaining things around us should be an important consequence. http://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/

From https://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-magick-of-future-radionics-by-karl.html

from https://radionicsbox1.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/the-magick-of-the-future-radionics-by-karl-welz/

From https://radionics201801.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-magick-of-future-radionics-by-karl.html

from https://radionics201801.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/the-magick-of-the-future-radionics-by-karl-welz/ from https://orgone0.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-magick-of-future-radionics-by-karl.html

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radionics201801 · 6 years

Link

towards Self-Improvement

It’s fun, it’s exciting, and you certainly can be laid back and relax while you expect assured success!

1. Welcome

http://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html

From https://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-magick-of-future-radionics-by-karl.html

from https://radionicsbox1.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/the-magick-of-the-future-radionics-by-karl-welz/ from https://radionics201801.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-magick-of-future-radionics-by-karl.html

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