#[[WHOOMP. THERE IT IS.]]

[persephryne]

Interview with the vampire has succeeded where House of the dragon has failed, no I will not elaborate.

[considermycat]

The more rosy, optimistic narrative – whereby the progress of Western civilization inevitably makes everyone happier, wealthier and more secure – has at least one obvious disadvantage. It fails to explain why that civilization did not simply spread of its own accord; that is, why European powers should have been obliged to spend the last 500 or so years aiming guns at people’s heads in order to force them to adopt it.

David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, p.493

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

It's that last 30% battery actin like it's 15%

God forbid I turn up my brightness I might as well be at 1%

[m3r1m4r5u333]

OH MY GOD I JUST STARTED RESEARCHING THOSE HINTS FROM THAT HOT SHOTS!-BRAD CONVERSATION AND YES WTF! IS THIS FOREPLAY?!

I'M SCARED

AND OFFICIALLY FUCKED UP.

Never watched Cocoon before so yay go team: I've now gone through the disturbing experience of watching someone's loved one die tragically and FEELING HAPPY ABOUT IT???

AND I'M NOT BUYING IT! IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO REVIVE THE ROSE!

THEY'RE FIREFIGHTERS! THEY NEVER GIVE UP!

Hey, am I seeing a moustache? Nope. Am I seeing boils? Na-ah! 😎

Whoomp! There it is.

[evilhorse]

Somethin’ tells me smiley ain’t too happy about us leavin’ pleasure island.

(Marvel Two-in-One #35)

[fox-guardian]

highly recommend learning to draw fat people, the shapes are so fun to sketch

[swordbisexual]

Two dorks wasting no time I guess!

[istherewifiinhell]

Trying to hunt down an old post. [Getting lead into april posting] now we dont have to get into all that. Please.

[scrunglepaws]

The creature Tails was aiming to defeat with the enchanted bridle was no joke. The kelpie could easily overpower him and then he’d be dragged to the depths of the lake and torn apart piece by piece… A very grisly way to go. Tails shuddered, but willed himself to continue on his way.

“I-It will work!” He reassured himself. “I’ve spent so long crafting it just so- put in failsafe behind failsafe in case of the main enchantment malfunctions… I have nothing to fear!”

He neared the edge of the lake to stare down into its depths. The face of an absolutely terrified fox stared back up at him. There was no fooling a reflection, unfortunately. He sucked in a long breath and held it there, attempting to get a hold of himself. He didn’t want the creature to think something was amiss because he was a shaking mess of fearful emotion. He needed to trick it; make it think he was an unsuspecting fool that it could easily prey upon.

‘Just concentrate on the magic… Believe in your work…! Nothing to fear. Nothing to fear.’

[whumpforthewin]

2023 Year of Whump - Restrained with Belts

Ah… I meant to have this out much sooner… whoops. I’m still going with the Year of Whump Prompts but imma jump around. Thank you for your patience.

“Wake up little one.”

Liam jolted awake nearly falling out of his chair in the process. He took a moment to frantically look around. He was a large dining room, there was food in front of him, and Sylas just off to his side.

“Good, you had been out for a while, wouldn’t want you to sleep through breakfast,” Sylas said. His voice was deep, soothing. If he wasn’t lying Liam would assume it was to keep his prey calm before he killed them.

Liam shied away from that thought. He couldn’t, he didn’t want to think about that right then.

The next thing he realized was that he was tied to the chair and wouldn’t have actually fallen out of it. The chair solid. He couldn’t tell if it was bolted to the floor or not but it would take serious effort to move it. Effort he wouldn’t be able to muster.

There were leather straps with belt buckles on the arms encircling wrists and he could feel similar on his ankles.

“Breakfast?” It didn’t feel like he had been sleeping that long. Although sleeping in a cage wasn’t all that pleasant so it wasn’t a surprise he didn’t feel rested.

“Oh course, you need to eat so that I can eat,” Sylas flashed a smile at him, Liam refused to believe he saw fangs. Sylas was just a Crazy coworker that kidnapped him.

“How, how can I eat with these on?” Liam asked tugging and rattling the binds. Half to make a point and half to test their strength. And there was no way he was breaking those straps.

“Not to worry.” And Sylas picked up the fork and stabbed a home fry. The thicker hashbrown did smell good and Liam’s stomach decided to rumble at that time. But he kept his mouth closed.

“Now don’t be like that, little one. I don’t want to hurt you. Which means you need to eat.” He offered the potato again.

Liam turned his face away and gasped at the sudden pain in his neck.

“Ah, you’re feeling it this morning. I told you I drank from you last night, before you had awoken.” He reached for Liam’s neck and Liam cringed but all Sylas did was brush his fingers over Liam’s throat. “I wanted to see the wound so I didn’t heal this one like I had been. So you’ll be sore. But not to worry, you’ll get used to the feeling.”

“I don’t want to, just, please, I won’t go to the police, just let me go. You’ll, I‘lol just leave you alone, please,” Liam begged. He had never had a stalker before. But he couldn’t imagine getting away from them was a smart thing if they wanted to be close to the person.

And he realized he was right when Sylas’s lips tilted into a small frown. Then he sighed. “I had hoped you wouldn’t resort to this. But it seems you need some time. That’s okay. I’m a patient man.” He set the fork down and pushed the food back.

Then he walked behind the chair and Liam only had a moment before he was dragging the chair back. He yelped and jerked to look at him. He wasn’t even straining with the heavy chair.

“I’m going to keep you in here,” he said pushing open a door to a dark room. “I’m nearly done with your room. Hopefully I’ll be able to move you into it tonight or tomorrow. Perhaps some isolation will do you some good.” He dragged Liam in the small room.

Liam jerked and tugged on the restraints. “Wait, no, Sam, Sylas, we can talk about this. Please, let’s just—“

“Good day, little one.”

The door clicked shut plunging Liam into darkness.

[citysvg1]

I dont wana party like it is 1999 Svg

[staryflowers]

I'm late to art fight but I've got a card and an account so we stay silly!

[silver-la-pixels]

Is it just me or is autism just the equivalent of taking your paper resteraunt cup to the soda fountain and adding a shot of each well-known menal illness soda to it

[peterlorrefanpage]

Mad Love / Phantom of the Opera crossover

Peter Lorre & Frances Drake - Mad Love studio promo (1935).

It's images like this that bring what I call my latent Phantom of the Opera desires to the forefront.

I mean, look at this. Look at his utter absorption as he drinks in the face of his beloved, at his regard palpable even in the poise of his chin, in his lowered eyelids:

Unhf.

It's because of Mad Love and tons of other things that Peter would have been fabulous as the Phantom of the Opera (just as he was in a different way as the Phantom of the Ballet). He'd have used similar elements, I just know it - the obsessiveness, the fractured personality, the masterfulness. He would have made PotO his own.

And after all, Claude Rains did it without singing (I do love Claude Rains).

Now, Peter could carry quite a nice tune. See The Verdict, and even the deliberately-goofy Was Frauen Traumen. But since it's already been established that singing on the Phantom's part isn't strictly necessary, even if we do mingle up movie and musical versions...

...and we already know Peter looks divine behind a keyboard, a la Three Strangers (1946)...

...and even when he's more menacing in All Through the Night (1942). I get that he's standing up from the piano at this moment, but still...

Now.

Imagine him as Erik, the lonely Hades of his own subterranean kingdom beneath the opera house, surrounded by all the lush and profane trappings he'd acquired over the long years. It's a home and a mausoleum in one, built to last out the rest of his days with everything he needs but nothing he wants.

Jaded and dejected, he sometimes feels his heart thudding so strongly it fills his ears like a tell-tale, ticking down the hours to the death he half-longs for. Time, there's too much time no matter how he squanders it, spending hours reinforcing the horrible stories that surround him like the wings of the stage.

Bah. Parlor tricks; amateur work. It's all too easy. He who had made audiences convulse and froth with horror, he who had designed masteries of diabolical architecture for petty gods on earth! What is an off-key shriek from a chorus girl or a whites-of-the-eyes bluster from a manager to that?

It's only when someone comes too close to his home, his security, his intactness, that his heart starts beating a vibration off the true, igniting his darker, more infernal urges...

Yet when he's with his music, tempering and mastering (though he knows he's a mere student of this, this cosmic glory) the pure energy that he hears with his eyes, feels with his skin - sound masquerading as air, as life - when he's more himself than at any other time - there's a small, stubborn, ridiculously hopeful part of him that glimmers up a foolish little wish that someone could sense and feel and know the humanity left in him.

For someone to see him, really see him, away from the shadows, away from the shroud, unshielded in unfiltered daylight.

And not leave him.

Such a hope is somehow the most damning of all. Yet he can't seem to obliterate it.

And then, one day, there - ! Above in the opera house! Something new has come: A budding voice, tremulous, pure.

A voice that brings the light right down to him through the corridors and casements, shafts and stairwells, along the crooked passageway second from the left, around the dust-covered boxes spilled out into the hallway from the broken-hasped door, down alongside the subterranean lake, through his doorways and walkways and archways, down to where he sits on his throne of an organ bench, hands frozen in mid-air, transfixed, overcome.

A voice without affectation. Without guile. Without, perhaps, much timbre or assurance.

But with, somehow, comprehension. Knowledge of suffering, of heartache, of the foibles of humankind. In fact--

Ah. There it is, a glissando of shade like a dark lantern closing, like the edge of an eclipse. He somehow knew it would be there.

How can such light coexist with this shadow?

He must behold its source. He must. Just a glimpse, that's all, surely he can have that. Just to see the face and form that voice comes from, just to fill his eyes and spirit.

And then to creep back to his cold hell of a home, there to feast on the image and the sound, knowing that the corporeal is not for such as him.

...but then, he thinks, as his hands twist his composition paper, crackling dry like mummified bones, why couldn't it be?

####

[kissingdeadgirls]

“No,” said By frankly. He hesitated. “But I’ll go if you’ll go with me.” “What are we, a couple of women getting up a posse to go to the lav?” “Why do women travel in herds like that, anyway?” Ivan said glumly, “Delia Galeni, back when she was Delia Koudelka, once told me they go together to critique their dates.” “Really?” By blinked. “Not sure. She might have just been trying to wind me up, at the time.” “Ah. Sounds like Delia.” Byerly waved a limp hand. “All right. Lead on.” Ivan sighed, and pulled him up. Then made him help eat the dehydrated dinner first, because Ivan had cooked it himself, dammit. But definitely without the seducing part. He left the dishes in the sink.”

this is the kind of sitcom sexism that truly annoys me, it undermines by’s credibility as a spy