#( VERSE ; haunt me then )

[venduri]

Only you could accomplish such art, Celebrimbor

Assad Zaman as Celebrimbor from JRR Tolkien's The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales

[cream-and-tea]

what she says: yea i’m fine

what she’s thinking: the story brought both carpenter and faulkner to their inevitable end points that have been foreshadowed from the v first episode of the show ambiguity of carpenters death aside she stood on the banks of the river singing like her nana glass and was gunned down by the military and faulkner was drowned dragged delivered by the god and story he had let devour him but. but. before those things happened right before the narrative reached its end both of them stood up and said no! i want to go forward! i want to find something past this whatever it might be i don’t want it to take me yet im going to keep on walking! and it was too late! the thing is it was too fucking late!!!!!!! the aquifer was already flooding the soldiers were closing in she was to hurt to run he can’t swim. the chance had come and gone at the beginning of the episode for any hope of them reaching each other ever again but even though it was too little too late never ever going to be enough they both looked the site of their doom in the eyes and said i do not accept this. not here. not now. i am staring at you– the thing that will eat me — and resolving to pry open the jaws and choose to use the last moments of my life (whether i know it or not) to run and stumble and crawl and cry and sing in the hopes of reaching the people who matter to me more than being made your meal. and of course they got fucking eaten anyways. of course they did bc they were walking towards it from the beginning. but there is a way out, there is a way forward, there is a land beyond the storm that is possible to reach if you choose to step out of the story that has been built for you to find it. we walk on, with a rough and tarnished hope, and a tangled, ruined love. it can end with love, and it can end with kindness. even as the jaws are closing. ours is a world of miracles.

[cherrywhite]

Silt Verses protagonists // Returning Home

[redkelpfish]

I had a vision

[thisnerdetteoverthere-blog]

Every now and then i scroll on social media and a pjo edit will still catch me unaware and make me tear up

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

what's your dissertation about? you mentioned it in the siltcord and i'm really interested

oh my god hey I'm so happy you're interested! broad strokes because I've only been working on it for a few weeks but: the current theme is 'resistant landscapes' (both man-made and natural) in the later writing of Shirley Jackson!

Essentially, my main thread is that Jackson had two parallel strands to her work, which as far as I can tell began kind of interrelated but then diverged quite significantly? She's probably best known now for The Haunting of Hill House and to a lesser extent We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which are these. weird surreal psychological horror novels, engaging explicitly or implicitly with the supernatural, and centred around introspective, strange and sometimes deeply misanthropic female characters from isolated social units with dysfunctional, possessive relationships to each other.

Aaaaand then on the other hand she was known for being a 'happy housewife' who wrote these whimsical, quasi-autobiographical stories about all her children and how hopeless her husband was. These were popular too. Betty Friedan called her out in landmark 1963 feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique for essentially spreading patriarchal propaganda.

The interrelation between the two is really jarring, because in one family is a source of horror and tragedy and in the other it's a source of, like... laundry. And Jackson's home life wasn't everything those stories made it out to be-- her marriage was unfaithful, her mother could probably be fairly called emotionally abusive, and as I talked about on the siltcord, she developed severe agoraphobia which often left her housebound.

So, yeah. My plan is to explore the depiction of families as constructed social units in dialogue with the environments they are constructed in in that work. Obviously a lot of that is relation of house to family, in the context of which Hill House is especially rewarding to consider, but I also want to look at relationships with nature and urban environments (especially in the context of settler colonialism and how that has had an enduring legacy in Jackson's particular part of New England), xenophobia (largely in regard to class, though racism and anti-Semitism are presences in her writing), domesticity and the idea of the housewife, and how horror relates to All Of This. The ideal of making a home within a hostile environment and of that environment turning on you, essentially.

I don't yet have particular areas of focus within that broad umbrella, but I might update with bits and pieces about it as I work? I don't really talk about academic stuff on here but I am very much Critical Literary Analysis Guy and I do also post relentlessly about haunted houses as a concept so if people would be interested in it maybe I will

anyway if you've read this far I recommend Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (2024) by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing which is a book about how horror movie tropes can be mirrored in built environments! I'm reading it right now and it's conceptually fascinating plus fairlyyy comprehensible by academic standards (if a little dense) if you, like me, are a Fool who knows nothing of architecture. very good also for getting to look at pictures of some of the most Fucked Up Buildings (affectionate) you've ever seen.

[theemptyislost]

Fade into You

Here is a treat - most of my writing is on AO3 but I will share this here since today is today.

Sometimes, with Raphael and Haarlep, it takes a bit of giving before you can take.

Week 1, Day 3

Raphael sunk into his bath. Reveled in the hum of healing over his damaged flesh.

With a sigh, he released his favored cambion form. Dulled teeth ground together, vexed by feel of his human façade sliding back into place – smaller, softer, weaker.

Raphael reclined with a muffled growl. The notes not hitting the right pitch, its impact butchered his mortal condition. Arms lazily perched on tepid marble. The flame of a candle warming the side of his face.

“You are in a state, master dearest,” His incubus sung, settling along the opposite side of the bath.

Annoyance rippled up his spine in tandem with the disruption of the water’s surface.

Raphael cracked an eye open, slanting a glare at his paramour. It was rare his incubus left Tav alone.

“Where is our mouse?”

“Resting,” they snapped, coltish smirk decorating their attractive face. “Well, as best the poor thing can.”

“Haarlep,” Raphael warned, not having patience for their games.

“Is that all you care about?” Haarlep was hurting, Raphael realized. Covering up that hurt with malice, picking at those closest. “What about me? Who will cater to my needs when you tire of – “

Raphael flicked water at his pest.

Haarlep sputtered at the unexpected attack. Their false vitriol evaporated, giving a glimpse as to what actually troubled them.

Ah,  Raphael mused. Tav was reopening old wound, it would seem.

“State what you mean plainly, dearest,” Raphael graveled, voice dipping. He flicked his wrist, adjusting the temperature. The faucets recycled the water at a faster pace, the soft trickling would muffle their conversation should his mouse take to sneaking around the manor. This insufferable part of Avernus, torrid still – but stifled enough that steam hovered in the air.

Raphael would have to distract Haarlep from their laps, he did not need them fracturing with their pet.

Discreetly, he flexed the muscles of his arm, rotating it just so. Allowing the residual water droplets to clinging to his skin to fall along the outline of corded muscles. Each translucent pearl glistened under the candle light, dripping ominously back to the bath’s surface.

Raphael knew the effect it had on his lustful wretch –  a subtle action that allowed for the building of desire.

A lesson in seduction taught to him a long time ago.

One should, at first, introduce the concept of longing slowly. Kindle its flame within your prey’s subconscious.

Pluck at their weakest points, make them think the growing arousal was their idea – a natural reaction to something mundane.

Then, once you drew them in deep enough, that is when you sweetened the pot…before sinking your claws into their throat as easily as a knife through butter.

Haarlep’s gaze warmed, the tension slowly bleeding from their shoulders and wings.

“Let me help her,” Haarlep implored, falling back into their argument from the previous eve. “With the way she is now –“

“No,” Raphael rejected that non-option.

“Raphael – “ An abysmal growl rippled the water around them.

“There is a price that comes with that spell, Haarlep,” Raphael leaned forward, Haarlep mirrored him. The younger visage of his devil heritage a painful visual reminder of how he would never be whole; not until he controlled the hells – not until Asmodeus’ throat was pinned beneath his boot. “You are forbidden from using it, do I make myself clear?”

Haarlep snarled.

That was not an agreement and Raphael hated repeating himself.

“My mouse is to heal without any form of crutch. Tav is – “

“She is not your little mouse,” Haarlep barked, a crazed look in their eyes. “She is not my little thief. Not the way she is now – ” Haarlep shoved Raphael back, crowded their master until his spine hit the marbled step. They settled on his lap, tail flicking hard enough to break the waters surface, wings blocking the rest of the boudoir. “Tav is broken,” Haarlep’s hushed, claws sliding along the side of Raphael’s face. “Our little mouse is far too damaged; her mind, her body.”  Fingers trailing those defined features, courting a hint of silver until they tangled in his hair at his nape. “There is nothing to play with –  nothing to mend and break the way we want; not with the state your little mouse is in now.”

They would make it seem like their master had the power, encourage their little brat’s ego and obsession.

Haarlep rocked themselves against Raphael, feeling him grow hard against their own length. Knew the sensation would compound his own poorly restrained arousal.

They knew his ploy; could appreciate his previous attempt, a boy playing at seduction.

A near half mortal trying to seduce a creature such as themselves – an incubus born of darkness and desire.

Raphael would cave to their wants; their brat could deny them nothing.

Haarlep would get their way when it came to caring for their little thief, it would just take a bit of persuasion.

Their tail coiled around Raphael’s hardened cock. Haarlep caught their master’s strangled moan with poisoned lips. Their tongue slipping to tangle with his own, tail constricting and pumping around him. One of their hands pet down the planes of his trembling abs. Falling to dip between Raphael’s legs. Haarlep gently cupped their master’s balls, squeezing with just enough pressure to make him whimper against them.

They supped from their cambion king. Thrilled at the way his hips jerked against theirs, his human nails falling to dig into their borrowed flesh.

Haarlep would have to wear Raphael’s resolve down, and they knew just how to make their little brat beg.

[sealrock]

coming to a store near you.

(template.)

[starsandwriting]

Jonathan Sims and Richard Faulkner duking it out in the 'being crushed alive by the guilt of your actions' competition

[pinkelotjeart]

sorry to keep bothering you i just think it’s a bit funny

* intense screaming *

[lotrmusical]

Namer of nameless hills and tall mountains green A crown of stars upon his head like gems was seen High peak to deepest vale and all inbetween Undimmed by cloud or shade of night, a splendour fair and keen Light and song, vanquishing the dark and gloom Harp and trumpet, burnish gold the air Precious realm, O Moria, O Khazad-dûm O my people, would that I had found you there!

happy anniversary, watermill lotr! you know how we're always saying that lament for moria deserves to be a full-length song? i have made extra bits to turn it into one!

borrowed from gimli's song of durin in the books to put together an extra verse and pre-chorus, and set them to music. (this audio is an auditory reference for the new bits, stuck together in musescore with the vocal line represented by cello because i am not a singer)

pdf scores (one with multi-instrumental accompaniment and one with guitar reduction) + lyrics are on google drive here!

[threepige0ns]

Pumpkin carving night with the friends! Wanted to do another silt verses pumpkin this year, so here's a wound tree pumpkin for my faves! Happy Halloween!!

[ambivalentmarvel]

peter parker, peter b. parker, and miles morales—

should have known better - sufjan stevens // chicago - sufjan stevens

[floweroftheforest]

Thinking about how Faulkner’s body mirrored the unidentifiable body at the beginning of the series. Thinking about how they all believed that the High Katabasians and Prophets would get one last grand speech before they died and Faulkner’s last word was “sister”. Thinking.

[pulchrasilva]

Holy fucking shit I did NOT survive the wisdom saga

[theemptyislost]

Since this is taking so long, here is a snippet. (its unedited and still a rough draft)