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tryst-art-archive · 2 years ago

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December 2010: "Until I Fall Asleep"

This is the second iteration of this story, and quite different from the first in that it's in Calez's perspective rather than Dani's.

---Story follows---->

I used to keep a photograph of Dani silhouetted in a window in my pocket. In it, she stood on a desk, balancing her weight on her left leg, the right bent just so, her arms languid lines extending to the window frame, holding her loosely in space. She wore a short dress that clung to her and heels that boosted her three inches. The glare of a Detroit street obliterated the interior details of her body, allowing only for a single line down her side and along her arms. There was just enough light to see the pink-tipped gray of her hair.

It was a photo from one of the richer periods of our wanderings. Dancing across the country and accidentally pirouetting into a Detroit winter, we found a cheap apartment overlooking one of the city’s busier streets. Michael took up work in a local night club, engaging himself as an exotic dancer, his perennial career. I found a part-time job in a pizza place and spent my spare hours on street corners, freezing my fingers on the ice of my flute in exchange for the pocket change cell phone-wielding citizens were willing to spare. Dani took to babysitting.

We pooled our funds to afford rent and buy groceries and indulged ourselves in the luxury of a roof over our heads. At that time, Dani and I had been homeless for two years, Michael for I don’t know how many years longer, and had spent the previous winters in the southern parts of the country. This was the first time that we had lived within the confines of architecture since we had followed Michael out of southern Florida and into a life of musical vagrancy.

We shared a bed for the four or five months that we stayed in that run-down, two-room apartment. I slept between Dani and Michael, forming a chain of spoons. Michael curled into my back as I curled into Dani’s, and her arms stretched down over the side of the mattress so that when I woke in the mornings, dull sunlight caught the olive of her skin and the pink fringe of her spider silk hair.

She had gone gray in elementary school due to an otherwise minor thyroid problem, and by the time I met her in the beginning of our adolescence, she had embraced the color. I remember sitting at lunch with Dani and her admiring circle of misfits, my hands in my lap and my mind full of scales. Even at thirteen I was struck by her. She stared me down with ice cream green eyes and rechristened me Calez. Some days or weeks later, when she and the rest of the school discovered that I played the flute, she lauded my skill with more admiration than anyone else. She noticed that, when I became bored, I harmonized to the other flutes, and she begged to learn music. I taught her as best I could, and she became skilled in keeping rhythm and could sing a tune with everyday beauty. She danced when she made music, and before long we spent our time making melodies and dancing, laughing as we cast our emotions to the air.

I fell in love with her quickly and quietly. I became the pillar that she stabilized her life upon. She told me everything there was to tell about her life, about the father who left her and her mother behind or about every boy she thought she loved who left her behind, crying on my shoulder. I held her when she needed comfort, laughed with her when she needed mirth, and shared only the secrets that wouldn’t upset her. For her, I was the smiling face with the half-lidded eyes. In the Detroit mornings, she would roll over, stretching, and smile at me as if I were not a man. Then she would sit up and reach over me to tickle Michael into wakefulness and laugh at him as if he were not gay. Then she would tell us what she dreamed, and I would forget why I slept between them. Michael would smile vaguely, mind clouded with sleep, forgetting to be untouchable.

Michael came to us in the tangible heat of a Florida summer. We had graduated from high school and filed our applications to the University of Miami. Dani intended college as no more than a buffer to keep her from the working world; I had declined to go to Berklee College of Music in order to stay close to Dani. By that time, our musical sessions had taken us onto the street corners of Miami where my flute and Dani’s dancing gave us enough pocket change for booze and weed and ice cream. Dani claimed that it was the stream of thirtysecond notes, mordents, and trills that slipped out of my flute that brought us the cash; I knew it was her peculiar appearance and untamed dancing that drew the crowd’s attention. A tambourine in one hand, or perhaps she held a washboard that day, she spun on one booted foot, her scarf echoing her circles, her multitude of bracelets jangling. Then, as now, she wore her hair in an unkempt bun so that the pink tips of it made fireworks behind her head and free-falling segments framed her face.

That summer a new club targeted at young gay men had opened in the city’s party district. Dani being straight, and myself being bisexual, we meandered down to it on a Thursday night and found a battalion of tipsy twenty-somethings waiting to get in.

“Oh, we are so jamming near here,” Dani said.

We picked a spot just far enough away as to avoid the drone from the bass pounding away within the club and just close enough to catch the attention of the waiting patrons. We made a killing that first night; the clientele enjoyed the side-show and sent members of their party over to leave bills in my flute case. Dani flirted with them lightly as they came and went, careless of sexuality and gender, playful in speech as in her dance.

I closed my eyes on the scene, falling into my flute, aware only of the keys under my fingers and the way the air stepped aside for Dani’s body. Countless measures into the evening, I felt her movement stop, and she shook my arm. “Did you see that?” she said. Her eyes were wide with schoolgirl glee, and her mouth struggled with a grin too large to contain.

I shook my head.

She made an exasperated noise, rolling her eyes. “You have to look tomorrow night. The dancers from the club came out, man! They were watching, and this one—my god, you have to see him, Calez! You will shit your pants, I kid you not.”

We returned the next night, Dani bouncing on her toes, goose bumps on her skin in spite of the heat curling around the buildings, lying heavily on our limbs. I drew music from my instrument, and Dani sang that night. When she stopped, the absence of melody popped my eyes open, landing them on a slim figure leaning against a nearby brick wall. He tapped the ash from the cigarette he held in one hand, his other propping up the opposing elbow. He wore a light sweater in spite of the heat; I imagine he wore it as an act of modesty as he later told us he didn’t wear a shirt in the bar.

Dani struggled not to stare at him, and no wonder. His skin was like sand, his hair was like terracotta, and it flopped appealingly in front of his highlighter blue eyes. He watched us with a lazy fascination, entirely silent as his fellow dancers clamored around him. They joked with Dani while she danced, shouting encouragement, enjoying our enthusiasm. She laughed with them, of course. She bantered with them, though her minty eyes returned again and again to the Sahara man with Antarctica eyes. My own tree bark irises flickered between the two, watching Dani’s interest grow, watching this latest object of her desire smoke lazily, watching the by now familiar writhing gurgle of jealousy bubble through my gut and up into my chest.

The leaning figure’s attention focused on me then, and he happened to catch my eye. He lowered his cigarette and flashed a charming smile full of commercial-perfect teeth before throwing the butt to the ground and rubbing it out under one scuffed shoe. He led the other dancers back inside.

Dani whipped around, decorative scarf flapping behind her. “Well?”

“Well.” I eyed the door to the bar for a moment. I had to admit that that brief moment of eye contact had sent a shiver up my spine. “He’s striking,” I said.

“Striking? Is that it?”

I shrugged. “I can’t get excited about someone I don’t know.” I grinned and elbowed her gently in the side. “You’re prettier anyway,” I said.

She punched me in the arm and called me stupid, and I laughed, returning to my flute.

The dancers visited with us on almost every night that we stood on that corner. We became accustomed to their presence, and it came as a surprise when, on a slower evening, the blue-eyed man said, “You two are pretty good. Real love of music. I’m a fan of yours. My name is Michael.”

In Detroit, Michael briefly entertained a lover. This wasn’t the first occasion that he’d had one since we’d known him, but it was the first occasion that the relationship occurred where we could see it. Before that, he had simply gone to the home of the beau of the day, claiming that his own was unfit for lovemaking, glossing over the fact that his home at the time was the underside of a bridge or the forgotten attic of a church. The lovers believed him, oblivious to the subtle signs of his vagrancy. All three of us are careful to disguise our homelessness. We leave my flute case open for funds as we make our song and our dance, and usually those funds morph into a supply of cosmetics and food.

Michael is religious in the cleaning of his teeth, and Dani is fanatical in the maintenance of her hair. We bathe in rivers, sneak into unrented apartments to borrow the showers, steal sleep and food where we can, carry stolen knives to defend ourselves from anyone who decides to dislike us. We’re easy to spot, Dani and Michael being the miracles of genetic chance that they are, and we aim to appear to thrive even when we are barely surviving. It’s the easiest for me. My hair is a mop the color of dirt; my skin is neither good nor bad; my eyes are sepia. My grin is too lopsided and vague to be untrustworthy, and I blend into crowds. I scruffily pass as normal without undue effort.

But in Detroit we had unusual wealth that gave us a ramshackle home, and Michael brought his beau of the week there. On a Friday night, I came home to the unmistakable sound of Michael’s conquest, and a tightness in the air that made me look for Dani. She had curled herself up in the chair by the desk at our one remarkable window which overlooked the street and filled the room with dim, shifting light. She wasn’t in tears, but the rigidness of her face and tension in her poise said she held them back. She stared out down the street, and in an odd way, I could hear her thinking.

I laid my hand on her shoulder, leaned down, and pressed my cheek against the top of her head. “Hi,” I said.

It took a moment, but she managed a faint greeting. “We’re on the couch tonight,” she said.

I nodded. “We’ll get him back some day,” I said, squeezing her shoulder.

She smiled for half an instant. “I wish he wouldn’t do this.”

“I know. We could ask him not to, but he’d pout.”

The smile lasted this time. “That’d be annoying.”

We sat together in silence for a few minutes longer, studying the cars slipping down the thoroughfare. I went to make the couch sleeping-appropriate for Dani, gathering blankets as I crossed the apartment so that I could make a nest on the floor for myself. Behind me, I heard Dani saying, “We should have a two-man party. We’ll get our rock on and take pictures and leave them around so Michael’s all jealous when he kicks his boy-thing out.”

“Sure. Do we have a camera?”

Dani appeared at my side, bent like a butler, holding an instant camera out to me. “We do indeed, my dear sir.” She laughed. “One of the kids gave it to me. She was dressin’ up like a princess and shit, all ‘Oh, Dani, Dani! Take a picture of me!’ It was adorable, man. I was like ‘Alright, I’ll go get these developed and give them to you next time I see you, okay?’ But I didn’t use all the pictures on dress-up. I figured I’d save the last few shots for myself. It’s like a tip, yaknow?” She stood upright and shook the camera under my nose. “Bless my foresight, eh?”

I smiled and took the camera, watching as she pulled on some shoes and clambered onto the desk. Once there, she began gyrating and throwing her arms in the air, pretending she was in a crowded club, reverberating with the bass line in a techno song. I snapped a few pictures of her dance, set the camera aside, and jumped onto the desk beside her, finding the rhythm from the sway of her wrists and twist of her hips.

We danced until after Michael and his beau had fallen asleep. Laughing, we hugged when our dance grew tiring, and Dani turned to the window. I hopped off the desk, returning to the camera. Dani, leaning into the window, said, “I hope we move out soon.”

I snapped my picture of her then.

After Michael introduced himself to us, that first time, our musical sessions on the sidewalk expanded to include a break period in which we talked with him and the other dancers. He was reticent about himself but similarly disinclined toward idle, polite chat. He spoke the most when his fellow dancers were absent, and they became more and more so; I began to suspect, as the months rolled on, that he was asking them to stay behind.

“How old are you, anyway?” Dani asked once.

Michael drew on his cigarette. “Older than you, but not by too much. I’d be out of college now, if I’d stuck with that.”

“You went to college?”

He nodded. “Up north, yeah. Studied music, dance, theatre, musical theatre just to roll it all in one. They taught me all the technicalities. Here’s how you sing a high C, here’s how you approach a part and develop a character, here’s how you waltz or salsa or tango. This is an aria, this is a ragtime, so forth, so on. Then they’d hand me a project and say, ‘Be creative!’ all full of bubbles, so I’d do what came natural. I’d take all those things, pick out elements, and throw out the rest, blend it all together to see what I got, just do what felt right.” The end of the cigarette lit up, casting his hair into sharp relief. “They didn’t like it.”

“So you left?” Dani’s eyes were wide, her body taut with admiration.

Michael didn’t answer right away. The corner of his mouth moved slightly, caught between responses. “No,” he finally said. “They failed me out.” He looked away from us.

“Oh,” Dani said, sagging slightly.

I tapped my flute against my shoulder. “People seem to like you, though.”

“Yeah!” Dani said. “I mean, look at that line, man! You’re drawing a crowd, and it’s a friggin’ Wednesday.”

Michael shook his head. “Dancing half-naked for a bunch of drunk men is fun in its own way, but it isn’t dance.”

Another time, Dani asked him, “So where do you live?”

“A bit of everywhere.” Her critical stare prompted him onward. “I don’t have a house or an apartment or anything, if an address is what you’re asking for.”

“What?”

He didn’t say anything, and Dani turned to me. I shrugged.

Michael rubbed his cigarette, barely begun, out on the wall. “You stay in one place too long, they make you play by their rules. Keep moving, and they can’t find you.” He walked into the club.

We stayed in Detroit until the winter passed by, then we headed east, a direction Michael had been reluctant to go. “Too many memories,” he said. We went south through Ohio, following the border of the United States and Canada, tracing along lakeside shores. In Pennsylvania we stole a tent from an unsuspecting SUV and pitched it in a cow field. In the morning, Michael and I awoke to a scream from Dani; a cow had poked its head into the tent.

Michael refused to pass through New York, urging us through New Jersey, touching New York soil only briefly to enter Conneticut. In Rhode Island, we found our way to New Port and managed to spend two nights in one of the smaller McMansions before security guards realized we were there and chased us out. We lost them down along the rocky coast which we followed up into Massachusetts. In Boston, we wrapped ourselves in Salvation Army blankets like Scotchbrite.

We entered New Hampshire in time for another winter, pushing us into the cheapest accommodations we could find and the least appalling jobs on hand. I framed my picture of Dani and left it in the center of our kitchen table. At that time, Dani’s work hours at a breakfast place didn’t line up neatly with Michael’s at yet another club and mine as the janitor to the same club. With Dani largely absent from our waking lives, Michael and I began to discuss matters that we’d tacitly agreed to ignore before, slipping into a surreal degree of honesty.

“So Dani,” Michael said, evening after evening, until at last I said, “What about her, Michael?”

He studied his fingernails. “You tell me.”

“We’ve known each other for years. She’s beautiful and funny and kind when she wants to be. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, even though she doesn’t always use it. She loves to dance and break free, and she’s got more balls than me, that’s for sure.”

Michael barked a laugh. “I’m pretty sure you’ve never said that many words in a row to me ever.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “You’re in love with her.” Then, “You know she doesn’t feel the same way, Calez, and if she doesn’t by now, she’s never going to.”

“Please don’t tell me to move on.”

He shook his head. “You already gave up your life, didn’t you?”

We were silent for a moment. “She’s in love with you,” I told him.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know. Her and everyone else with eyes.” He stared at me, piercing with his electric blue. “Except you that is.”

I allowed myself a grin. “Heart’s already spoken for, man.”

He threw his head back, laughing. I swept gum wrappers off the floor. When I looked up, Michael was leaning into my face. “You know,” he said, “you’re a good doormat, Calez.” He caught me by the chin, studied my face, and sauntered out of the club, through the snow to the bed where Dani lay curled in sleep, alone.

Toward the end of the summer before our theoretical college years, Dani’s and my late night trips into Miami became more infrequent. Familial duties, the purchasing of collegiate goods, and the way we drew out the process of packing tore at our energy, so that we welcomed the peace of our beds. When we did step onto the streets, we found that Michael’s cigarette breaks lasted longer and longer. He spoke more and more freely, and though the specific details of his life remained obscured, we began to understand that he had let us into a confidence he shared with no one else, and when I mentioned this to Dani, he won the whole of her trust.

At the end of August, Michael wandered out of the club without his cigarette, walking up to us and coughing politely to stop our music. “I’m leaving soon,” he said. “Seems to me you probably are too, but you don’t seem to be planning on going too far.”

Dani’s face fell. “You’re going?”

“I’ve stayed here longer than I wanted to.” He turned his head aside but watched us from the corner of his eye. “I’m thinking that maybe you two have too.”

Dani’s hand rested on my forearm; her fingers gripped me.

“You see,” Michael said. “I’m homeless, in a sense. I don’t live anywhere, I just wander around, dancing. But it’s pretty hard to dance without music, you know? And you two are quite the musicians.”

Dani locked eyes with me, her breath faint and her body quivering. Her entire being shook with the desire to escape the mundane apathy of her life, to escape the father who left like so many other fathers, and the mother she unjustly despised like so many others despised theirs, and the high schools and colleges where she learned and would learn trivia through a haze of smoke, and the way that she woke up in the mornings, eyes crusty with sleep and chest filled with the feeling that she was going nowhere and never would find herself anywhere. Her soul wept for the chance to shed the detritus of her life, to shed the fact that it was essentially unremarkable. She stood on the cusp of finding the excitement she so craved, and the cost was all the life she had lived before, all that she had ever been or had, and all the safety that a dull life afforded.

Staring into her eyes, watching her soul beg me, I saw that there was one thing she couldn’t leave behind. One aspect of her life, one pillar in it, that she couldn’t stray from.

I looked at Michael and said, “Now?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “Before the ex-boss figures out I just took the cashbox.”

I would apologize to my parents via payphone several weeks and two states later.

After New Hampshire, we trekked through muddy Maine and clambered over the landscape of Vermont. We picked up the Appalachian Trail there and followed it down to Maryland. We took a detour out to see Washington D.C., walked through Virginia and began to head west. In Kentucky we found a railway line that took us further west faster, and we napped in the lullaby of its clamor, Michael and Dani each with their heads in my lap, the photograph of Dani wrinkled and creased in the folds of my pocket.

We spent some time wandering up and down California, sleeping in its abandoned places. The corners of my photograph turned on themelves and were born away. The edges tore and the image scratched. In a Los Angeles bar, our bellies full of vodka and rum and gin paid for with flute money, Michael drew Dani and I into himself and kissed us both on our mouths. “Here’s to a beautiful marriage,” he said. “You are the loveliest concubines a scamp could ask for.”

Dani reeled under the impression of his lips and the fog in her mind. She cupped my face in her hands and stole what remained of Michael’s kiss from my jaw, giggling as she pulled away.

Michael smiled wolfishly and fished the photograph of Dani from my pocket. “Barkeep,” he said. “Another round if you please.” His gin and tonic oozed a circle into the face of the photo.

On the last night in Detroit, Michael curled into my right side and Dani into my left. I didn’t sleep. Instead I worshipped the ceiling over my head, I worshipped the comfort under my back, the walls that kept out the wind, the locks that kept out the fellow vagrants, the muggers, the gangbangers, the filth.

In the morning, Dani rolled awake and peered at me. “Did you sleep?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Silly,” she said. “We’ve got some serious walkin’ to do.”

I smiled, stroking her hair. “I know. I’m just going to miss this place.”

A little crinkle formed in her brow. Her mouth opened and closed, searching for the words or the breath to say them with. “Do you. Do you miss Florida sometimes? Do you ever want to go back?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Why would I then?”

She buried her face in my shoulder. “Good,” she said. Then, “Oh! I didn’t show you the pictures you took.” She rummaged in the bedside drawer for them and spread them out across our legs. Michael slept on.

We admired some shots and giggled at others. As Dani began to pile them back together to put away, she pulled one out. “This one’s all arty,” she said, passing it to me.

I agreed, and she said, “You want it?”

“I… sure!”

“It’s yours then.” She poked her tongue out at me and shuffled around to the other side of the bed to wake Michael.

In the picture, she stood on a desk, balancing her weight on her left leg, the right bent just so, her arms languid lines extending to the window frame, holding her loosely in space. She wore a short dress that clung to her and heels that boosted her three inches. The glare of a busy Detroit street obliterated the interior details of her body, allowing only for a single line down her side and along her arms. There was just enough light to see the pink-tipped gray of her hair.

Some hours later, she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever had any pictures of you.”

I said, “That’s okay. I’m right here.”

After the L.A. bar forced us out with its closing, we wandered down unfamiliar roads, hanging off one another and crooning brokenly to stray cats and unperturbed raccoons. We walked into a run-down motel and rented a room for the night, vaguely feeling that it was a worthwhile thing to do. The door to the room closed behind us, and Dani flopped backwards onto the bed, laughing. Michael sat at her head, curling her hair around his fingers, watching her mirth fondly. I crossed the room and returned their kisses of earlier. Michael allotted me another, and Dani sat up, taking both our hands and drawing us deeper into the bed.

We romped through our obliterated memories so that all I recalled afterwards was Dani’s voice in the darkness, singing softy in time to Michael’s breathing until I fell asleep.

In the morning, we looked like strangers, and I couldn’t find my photo of Dani. Michael had left it at the bar. “I’ll see if it’s still there,” he said, stepping out.

I sat and stared at the tumult of the bed sheets.

Dani touched my shoulder, then wrapped her arms around me, resting her chin on it. Her mouth opened to say something, perhaps even formed words, but no sound came out.

I held onto her arms, squeezing them in response.

We tidied the room and left to find Michael.

#old writing #writing archive #short story #fiction #prose #10s #2010 #Age 19 #oc writing #original characters #Dani #Michael #Calez #assignments #homelessness #musicians #I remember one of my classmates got mad at me over this story #glorifying homelessness was the problem

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desertdragon · 10 months ago

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So srs I think one of the only modern game Eng (and I specify english because other languages tend to not be as bad) localizations that's WORSE than this one is T/e/k/k/e/n and 8 is by far the worst bandai have ever done it for that game, but playing devil's advocate you can argue it's not as important there bc of the tone meanwhile XIV takes its tone very seriously so it's worse thematically and from a quality perspective to drop the ball in a serious story

#me every morning: i hope koji goes to hell today 🙇‍♀️#people love making excuses for the English language in general when it comes to interpreting Japanese they act like JP is just #so foreign and exotic and complex for English to handle- mf your orientalism is making you look stupid next to your other western peers #who can translate from JP just fine w/o being fucking weird about it and also doing shitty work 8/10 times #i think the problem is also ppl are bad at writing when they interpret something into English bc they have no prose even in Eng but 🤫#not all of them but from a LOT of eng localizers specifically U.S. ones i get the sense they mystify & glorify their job as well #in hopes of covering up their own fuck ups rather than accepting responsibility- it's a layered issue that boils down to stupidity & pride #be it on behalf of the company they work for the localizer themselves or both parties #speaking of bandai they did great work on Jojo ASB idk what it is that they can never get it right enough with their original flagship ip #srsly though 8 local even got the English subtitles for English speaking characters wrong like...HOW- voice script & txt are nothing alike

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professorspork · 18 days ago

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I hope this doesn't come off as an invasive question, I'm just curious how you came up with which fetishes to depict in each chapter of SDAU.

not invasive at all, if only insofar as the short answer is of course a) because i thought it was in-character and b) if I didn't at least find it at least nominally appealing myself i wouldn't have had any interest in writing it now would i so that's a bit of a tell

but short answers are no fun, of course, so let's break it down shall we?

Chapter 1: Thursday

This chapter was always intended to go hot and heavy, both as a genuine Watsonian introduction to Blake's world and as a sort of Doylist vibe-check for readers of "if you can't stomach this you're probably not going to enjoy the rest of this story, you can click the back button no harm no foul." but it's interesting to me that you specified fetishes rather than sex acts, because generally speaking that was a lot clearer to me in the conception of each scene. i knew what i was *going* for, even if I didn't always know from the outset how I would get there. so!

in this instance, I knew the vibe I wanted to nail (har har) was the degradation and humiliation aspect of Sun's kink. partially because I think that that's what canon Blacksun would have to be like-- if Sun didn't get something out of Blake being a dismissive and controlling sardonic shit to him they would never have stayed friends, jfc look at how she TALKS to him (and slaps him, twice!!!)-- but also because I really wanted to explore what that would be like for Blake, who doesn't *share* the kink (and in fact has some trauma around it) but still earnestly desires to indulge it, and gets something out of Sun's satisfaction in it.

I know I can write some Dora-the-Explorer-ass "seatbelts everyone!" sex scenes, but my goal is always verisimilitude that encompasses that-- never to break immersion. (I also find the sort of call-and-response ritual of verbal consent to be deeply erotic when actually portrayed like the act of intimacy it is rather than a chore or a checklist, so there's that.) i think i probably went a little more overboard than i had to in terms of in-prose justifications of the spicier moments, adding mental "because she knows he likes it so much" or "as they'd responsibly negotiated previously" caveats instead of letting things ride, but I also think that I got away with it because this Blake, like all Blakes, is deeply anxious and would feasibly have those self-soothing measures on the brain.

this (and what comes later in Dungeon Master) was also my avenue to explore just how "into character" Blake could get, because she goes full Domme performance here in a way she doesn't-- and in fact can't, constitutionally-- with Yang later on. she'll tease Yang, and isn't shy about being direct or even forceful, but I think she's hypersensitive to sounding *critical*-- due to a combination of a) her cognizance of her own responsibility as a sex partner of a trans woman generally and b) what being in love does to her and makes her feel specifically.

less under the umbrella of "fetish" and more in terms of erotica writ large and the broader goals of the fic, it was also very important to me to write a sex scene featuring (and glorifying in) bottom growth because THERE SHOULD BE MORE OF THEM OUT THERE.

Interstice: Sun

I saw an opportunity to put Blake in cat ears and I took it.

Chapter 2: Dungeon Master

listen, it is not my fault that Emerald Sustrai very obviously has a mommy kink situation that can be seen from space. that is in some ways the MOST obvious example of "I'm just depicting the character as I honestly see them, no agenda" in the whole fic. (well. tied for first place with Yang and the gag, but more on that later.)

the wax play with Russel was just a kind of scene I'd never written before that I thought would be fun and hot (lololol literally), and the come-on scene with Neon and Flynt was always intended to be more about Blake's social standing, experience, and inherent comfort at the club rather than the actual kinks involved.

Emerald, on the other hand, was supposed to be about the sort of... I'm not quite sure how to put it. the perils of unrestrained Id? a cautionary tale? Emerald *doesn't know herself,* that's part of her whole off-screen journey that gets paid off in in the end. she just knows that she Wants, but not what she wants, which makes the fact that she can only get what she wants by asking for it an immense frustration to her. she HATES that. so she tries to skirt by entirely on innuendo and provocation to force other people to make the decisions for her so she can just take whatever is given and deal with it, for good or ill.

and for Blake, that's a nightmare situation because she's basically used a sex club instead of therapy for the last several years of her life precisely because it's SUPPOSED to have these guardrails and people are supposed to know what they're looking for so nothing can cross lines. emerald basically shows her that that's a convenient lie she's been telling herself (one of many). emerald simultaneously shows Blake just how far she's come from where she's started-- which is quite far!!-- but also shows her she's gotten as much out of this particular coping strategy as she's ever gonna get. if Blake wants to grow more or get healthier, she cannot just keep doing what she's been doing. it's been clear to her friends for a while, but this is the moment it becomes clear to her. and if it hadn't already been, she could never have actually accepted it when Neptune says it at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 3: Beacon

no fetishes here. really the headline here is what i very much did NOT want to come off as a fetish, which is the way Blake becomes more attracted to Yang after she clocks her.

threading that needle and exploring that line-- the difference between "you are even more beautiful to me now because I see who you are and the fortitude it took to become that person, and the things I already found attractive before stand out even more to me now, and also Trans Women Are Hot We Don't Have To Make A Thing Of It" versus, like... getting weirdly prescriptive and flirting with straight-up physiognomy and ABSOLUTELY making a thing of it is not always an easy one to strike! honestly bless @alexkablob for being so patient with me because i had her read minutely different versions of that moment over and over and over again so the scene came across the way i intended it to: not being cutesy, not trying to obscure the fact that Blake is attracted to Yang BECAUSE she's trans, rather than in spite of or ignoring it.

i think-- or at least, i'd like to think-- that more cis writers want to be braver about writing trans-inclusive romance but don't for fear of sounding chaser-y. and this scene was always About That, in every way it's possible to be about that, for Blake AND for me

Chapter 4: Dirty Laundry

the fetishes depicted here-- electroplay and vampire roleplay-- don't have any significance unto themselves but instead are meant to be wider examples of Blake's true kink, which is indulging the kinks of others. Blake is GAME, not because she thinks she has to be or because it's an expectation Adam put on her, but because she's down for a challenge and likes to be the reason people get off.

Blake's just, embarrassingly, really into improv. that yes-and instinct gets her into weird sexy situations at the club, and also makes her very fun to play DND with.

Chapter 5: Proper Socialization

this is where we first start to see the signs of Blake's next self-inflicted mental health crisis, which is "i am somehow diminishing Yang by having sexy thoughts about her being submissive because obviously she'd never agree to that" blake. BLAKE what are yoU TALKING ABOUT

YOU COULD TRY. ASKING.

like Blake knows damn well that it's not degrading or insulting to sub, and a lot of this is just her being embarrassed about having lustful thoughts about Yang at all, but there IS that edge there of "if she knew that's how i see the world she'd never forgive me" that is... the self-obsession and fretting is in some ways a fetish, if that makes sense? like Blake's so far down the rabbit hole on this it's a fetish in the most clinical way, it's a fixation.

Prelude (1): Adam | Prelude (2) Adam Blake

... and once I got that far, it was obviously the right time in the story for me to dig the origin of that thought out at the root

this chapter is in many ways the other side of the coin from Thursday. just as it was important to me to show Blake owning her identity as a Domme with Sun, it was equally important for me to show her owning her identity as a sub with Adam. not as his victim, but as her own person. there was never a chance of this relationship being healthy because Adam's a manipulative groomer shitstain, but Blake *could* have had *a* healthy relationship as the submissive partner and truly enjoyed it, if she'd found a worthier person to crush on. that ability to trust and let go-- to surrender-- to submit, in the most basic meaning of the word-- is not something Adam forced upon her, but rather something he took from her. it was hers, and he ruined it.

I've also talked about this a lot in the author's notes and elsewhere, but it was also important to me to show that Blake chose this and wanted him. I think diminishing her agency in the development of their romance is a misread of the character that does a disservice to who she is and what she's overcome. what she has to accept here is not that she missed the signs, but that she SAW the signs and WELCOMED them. his being dangerous, edgy, and forbidden was a major part of the thrill and appeal to her; she'd gotten off on that. which: that's also a reason i could only ever explore this in an AU and not canon, because it's very different to put that on a precocious but ultimately consenting college student than a twelve-year-old but we don't have time to unpack all that

and... maybe it's very obvious to say it, but the other fetish that comes up here (and did previously in Sun's interlude) is just like Blake's fundamental awakening to the possibilities of polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. which isn't a fetish in and of itself, but is the mechanism by which every other fetish gets explored. it's a permission structure that lets Blake live her life in a way that feels natural to her without shame-- or would, if Blake were capable of not feeling shame lmao-- and that's the engine that makes everything else in this fic go.

Chapter 6: Four Questions

No real fetishes present other than Blake's fixation on Yang's bruise, which: see what I said about Proper Socialization.

Chapter 7: Body & Recovery

see above, again, more and harder (heyo). this is the first time Yang literally TELLS Blake "I like when you get toppy and particular" and Blake like... believes her but also decides this can somehow only apply to the most vanilla of instances and couldn't possibly translate into a larger dynamic because that would be Deciding For Yang somehow

also, dry humping is hot. the simulacrum of control vs the obvious and overt loss of control, the way it has an innocence to it despite being (literally, in terms of necessary cleanup) filthy... fun times. we see this come up again several times, the "I like getting messy," and that's just a thing I have about sex scenes generally that I think is deeply important. you have to want the bodily fluids around or why are we doing this.

Chapter 8: Balance

There was no way I was gonna get though a fic like this without a breathplay scene. there couldn't BE a more on-the-nose depiction of Blake's need for control-- but also, to her credit, the way she's thoughtful and responsible with the power she's given. it's a way of showing how her pathological mistrust of herself is unearned. like, people literally put their lives in her hands and homegirl doesn't even notice.

(see also, related: Blake promising Yang "I love when you say no to me" and meaning it like GIRL JUST LISTEN TO YOURSELF)

and going back to the polyamory point, it was important to me structurally to show Blake continuing to have encounters at Anesidora, and to tease out how they don't bother her or seem like cheating to her until she, as she always does, creates a mind prison about it.

Chapter 9: Power

well this one's a fun one for fetishes, eh?

this chapter is the first hint at Blake's fantasies regarding Yang's mirror, which will come up a LOT from here on out. I could (and honestly probably should) write a whole other essay about what I did with mirrors in this fic, and what their presence throughout signifies, but in terms of kink and fantasy I imagine it's pretty damn clear even here at jump: she sees Yang for exactly the woman she is and wants Yang to see it, too.

then we've got the juxtaposition of Yang In Panties and the rimming scene, and like... I don't think I'm being subtle here, you know? Yang is deeply vulnerable about her relationship with her own femininity, her desirability, her acceptability on like a basic level, and Blake... wants to devour her. Blake sees all of it, loves all of it, wants all of it. the things Yang sees as potential dealbreakers because they're shameful or subpar or ~gross, Blake just sees a goddamn sexy dreamboat. which Yang, like a hero, actually REALIZES at the end, while Blake then spirals out like a moron

this is another one where this is also just an act I don't see very often and had never attempted myself, and both were worth remedying.

Chapter 10: The Ropes

and-- see title-- the complete lack of subtlety continues.

Yang literally says this in her POV section in the next chapter, but the collar and leash was also a very deliberate and very linear, obvious choice. Yang WANTS to be bound to Blake, wants to be kept close and to have physical, tangible proof of their intimacy, and she picks the objects that tell Blake so. Collaring scenes are also A Big Deal in D/s stories and putting my (/their) spin on it-- having Blake present it to Yang to do it to herself, to put that agency in her hands-- was important to me. Blake's terrified of taking too much, of being this greedy conqueror, and Yang's trying so hard to say "you can't take what's already yours."

and of course just when Blake finally hears and accepts it, she misses that she's been so up her own ass about HER shit she hasn't at all been paying attention to the rest of Yang's or she'd have picked up the prior signs Yang dropped re: the ways her abandonment issues do and don't manifest

which brings me to the other major thing here, which is Yang's flirtation with cucking and depersonalization fetish and her own relationship to polyamory. Yang does genuinely find the idea of Blake with other people hot. and you can chalk that up to her always sublimating her needs to others, or you could see it as something she inherited FROM her parents rather than developed due to her proximity to their bullshit, or any number of other interpretations. but the way Blake's reveal to Yang goes-- with Yang wanting to be walked through the process of Anesidora and being turned on by it in this slightly-removed proxy way-- was one of the earliest things in my outline for this story. yang is stressed out about it Happening To Her and having to Do It Right in a way she isn't when she can just enjoy the idea of it as a voyeur without having to Perform.

Insterstice: Yang

So. The gag.

I have been on the record for years about my belief in this being a kink Yang would have, and I think I was fairly explicit about it in the fic itself. Yang is desperate to have her Class Clown instinct suppressed. she has gone out of her way to make herself likeable so she will not be abandoned again, and being explicitly shown that she does not need to do or say anything and will still be adored is deeply healing for her. this is why a lot of dommy or toppy takes on Yang leave me cold-- not because of the caretaker aspect, which I think she'd excel in and enjoy, but because it feeds into exactly that same charismatic (yet inherently performative) part of her that like, beats up on Junior and the show is clear FROM THE VERY OPENING TEXT is not truly who she is. it's a front she puts up.

and the thing about the mirror, which gets its first big culmination here, is that there is NO front Yang can put up. all she is faced with is her own actual reality, and the inarguable truth of it. it also plays into the voyeur thing I was talking about before, where there's this sort of pleasure at the idea of seeing Blake work and getting to see it on HERSELF, where she is simultaneously some other girl but also cannot escape the fact of "that girl is me." does that make sense? it's like the two circles finally converge into a venn diagram and then align.

Chapter 11: Play

This being its own chapter didn't exist in my original outlines. it was only when i got to this moment as I was writing linearly that I realized the audience both needed and deserved a chance to bask in the new normal before i started wrapping things up

actually rewarding everything I'd set up in terms of how they would approach Anesidora *together* seemed the obvious thing, and then going a few steps further to take it to the shibari and chastity cage place, well

*polite cough*

i have it on some authority that there is a hunger for that among my target audience

but seriously, it's all just more of what i've said. yang's desires revolve around being tethered and contained because she's had a lifetime of being gregarious and on her own. but she's also intrepid and COMPETITIVE, so blake making up rules she can WIN at stokes that fire in her to explore the unknown and also make it her bitch

and blake sees all of that, and wants desperately to indulge it

Chapter 12: Home

not really sure if the shower scene here rises to "fetish" level but to touch on it briefly

--or NOT touch, as is sort of what happens here--

i... hmm. i think in a way this is sort of my thesis statement about where blake's coming from with domination. which isn't touching, or being serviced, but is literally just talking Yang off and guiding her to her own pleasure.

Blake wants to be RESPONSIBLE for that, likes knowing she's a force for good, and the control she exerts is about learning to trust herself just as much as it is thriving at the evidence that her partners trust HER

blake obviously enjoys sex tremendously, but that's not what makes it erotic for her. her own pleasure is really the smallest part of it....

Epilogue: Surrender

... which sort of brings us full circle, to Blake's inevitable realization that her pleasure DOES matter and her desires CAN be identified and sated. even despite all she's been through; even if those desires don't seem coherent or consistent to her

the what of this, the improvised rock climbing bondage, was the very last thing to come together for this story. i knew i wanted Blake to experience full body restraint in an unconventional way, but I didn't have a solid plan on how to achieve it. which, because you asked about the fetish and not the act, I suppose is really entirely incidental

and like, as far as How I Chose To Decide Blake Wants To Be Tied Up, that did not feel like a choice at all. the excessive ribbon wrapping up the arms of her beacon-era outfit made that call for me. gambol shroud's existence AT ALL made that decision for me. Blake getting captured by Yuma and Trifa, Blake getting caught in the vines in the Ever After... you'll have to ask CRWBY about this one, not me, because that's just literally lifted wholesale from the show as Blake's obvious and inevitable Thing lmao

... and apparently this post is 3.5k so you know what i'm gonna cut it off there

THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS WAS FUN

#sdau #blake and yang #rwby #fic what i wrote

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neil-gaiman · 2 years ago

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I look forward to the day people realize you're not gonna hand out spoilers about your own things. :P

Also - fell in love with your works after reading Neverwhere (the Authors Preferred version, with the deep blue cover by Adam Johnson) and I absolutely love the... mundanity, of magic in your worlds. It's just THERE. It's not amazing, or super special, or anything like that - just a world that people Don't Notice. It's not glorified. It's just people being people. (or so goes my understanding of it lol)

I'm not necessarily asking for special info, or spoilers, or anything like that, but do you plan on writing more novels or short stories in the future? Or are you done with that for the time being (which would be understandable, with Good Omens on your plate)?

I'm really looking forward to getting back to prose.

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adokle · 2 years ago

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"Did I Ever Tell You the Story of Maverick Hood?

They say that with but flash of his Gaze* and an exchange of words, he could turn the hearts of the most vehement of enemies to his cause. And that he was one who would lay the first brick of the foundation for what would become the good status of the Hood name."

*The Gaze, is how the Hood family trait of what is known now as inducing vertigo via their cowl is referred to in their older texts, wherein the abilities and feats of their forebearers range from standard to grandiose.

Flowery, self-mythologizing prose to glorify a disorientating stare? Or was that stare once something more?

--- ---

I think that it's interesting that Hood's stare thing was hypnosis in the Pre-SGW, and vertigo in Post-SGW.

#mordred hood #ocs #sonic #adokleart

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the-savage-garden · 11 months ago

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Why am I anti SJM?

I've previously mentioned this in posts before but decided to make this to clarify my thoughts. Look, I didn't go out of my way to become anti SJM when I started reading her books, I actually had been looking forward to reading them!

About... 3 years ago I think, I convinced my mom to get me Throne Of Glass. After reading through a few chapters I realized I made a huge mistake in getting that book. And sure, it was my fault in not looking into it before then. I'm not familiar with YA books so I had no idea what to expect, as a teen I skipped over to adult books like from Stephen King. I always wanted to read romance books though so I thought it would be good to try new things. Well, lesson learned.

I felt guilt for wasting both me and my mom's time, can't even bring myself to tell her that I hate the book that I convinced her to buy for me. So I hoped if I found a way to read ACOTAR (which was what I originally wanted to get but couldn't find it) that I'd feel better and, well, I actually enjoyed that one. It was like glorified Disney's Beauty and the Beast fanfiction (seriously, tell me that Feyre isn't just Belle, Tamlin is the Beast, and Rhys is Gaston) but I found it fun, I thought that I just had the wrong impression of SJM with Throne Of Glass.

I decided to glance through ACOMAF as I was considering buying the series later and wanted to make sure that ACOTAR wasn't just a fluke. Then I read it... it's hard to describe how disappointed it made me feel. I wasted my time... again.

That's when I decided instead of feeling sorry for myself I'd use SJM's books as a learning experience and how to avoid the same writing pitfalls as her.

Reading through other anti SJM posts also helps me feel better, feels like I'm not crazy for hating these books.

I know besides the writing there's other problems with SJM but I try to not bring up anything with her personal life. The only time I would bring it up is if it's tied to her writing in some way (like for example how she writes siblings, found out she has a brother which makes me wonder why she writes sibling dynamics in such an odd way in her books because I assumed she was an only child before).

I'm a bit... mixed on her prose, sometimes it's fine but others it's bleh. Y'know how people think of characters as "I can fix him/her"? That's what SJM's books are like for me, I want to fix them so much. I see where things could've worked if it was rewritten, I'm not going to do it myself though, I'm just going to nitpick them instead.

Anyway, if anyone was confused on why I'm still going over SJM books even though I hate them I hope this explains why I'm still reading them. I do plan to go over other authors (maybe YA authors as they seem to be pretty bad from what I can tell) I'm just being a bit slower going over SJM.

#anti sjm #anti acotar #anti tog

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assortedvillainvault · 2 years ago

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Hi. I have a serious crush on Captain Hook and hope if you can write a romance one shot between me (aka the reader) and him please?

You have excellent taste friend! Sincere apologies for how long you have waited for this, I hope you like it! My brain is fried for full prose one shots so I hope bullet points are ok!

Captain Hook x Reader Romantic One Shot:

You wake up alone one morning to glorious sunshine and a note in Hook's elegant handwriting on his side of the bed.

It was clearly written with great care and the Good Quill and Ink, and you can't help but smile as you rub the sleep from your eyes and mouth the words as you read.

"Good Morning My Love. Your next gift lies under a wheel, towards the sky. Follow the Trail?"

Your eyes flick over to the compass on Hook's desk, where the needle points true north toward a cloudless horizon. A second note is folded under the well worn instrument and you scramble out of bed with a laugh.

You follow the treasure trail of notes all over the ship. The Jolly Rodger is well and truly abandoned, and you would be a little unnerved at the silence aboard if not for the multitude of notes and little clues that greet you at every turn.

The search takes literally all day, with a very appreciated set of notes leading you to a pre made breakfast and lunch, as well as the crows nest, bowsprit and even the anchor chain. Some come with little gifts (seashells, jewels that match your eyes) and others compliments and small bits of poetry.

Finally, as the sun sets in a golden blaze across Neverland, you come back to the Captain's Cabin. The last note indicated your 'Treasure' would be inside.

Hook opens the door and scoops you up into a delighted twirl. A mouthwatering scent hits your nose and you gasp at the dinner for two masterfully prepared inside.

And at the scores of multicoloured lanterns, each with a struggling fairy casting flickering light through the room.

When asked, Hook kisses your hand and quips that if they didn't want to be captured and used as glorified candles then they shouldn't have dumped rotten fruit on you last time you went ashore together.

The meal is divine, and you spend the night lovingly in eachothers company, not a care in the world.

On Neverland, Pirate Bay Beach:

The crew idly chat in their makeshift hammocks, listening to the repeated 'THWACK's of an oar against one tied up irate oversized crocodile just past the trees.

Ticktok snarls, but can't bite past the rope his snout has been bound with as Smee hefts the oar again.

"Now now, still got a way's to go!" he quips cheerfully as the oar slaps down again. "One slap for every nervous breakdown the Captain had setting this blummin' date up with you around, and another for every time I had to read through another blummin' note!"

Ticktok thrashes, but Smee can tell the croc has long since resigned himself to this. It's not like the oar is actually hurting him, after all.

#thalassa responds #captain hook x reader #disney villains x reader #disney villains #captain hook #I hope you like this!!#super cute little scenario love me some treasure hunts

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fettesans · 5 months ago

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Top, screen capture from Sei donne per l'assassino, directed by Mario Bava, 1964. Via. Bottom, photograph by Aidan Zamiri, from Lily McMenamy's performance A Hole Is a Hole, 2024. Via.

Monsters figure conspicuously in Gothic literature. The product of a sensibility that glorifies the self in isolation from society, the Gothic explores the darker side of the Romantic vision. In the Gothic mirror, the self is reflected in the extreme poses of rebel, outcast, obsessive seeker of forbidden knowledge, monster. Monsters are particularly prominent in the work of women writers, because for women the roles of rebel, outcast, seeker of truth, are monstrous in themselves. For a man to rebel, to leave a comfortable home and to search for truth are noble acts. Thus, this pattern of behavior is expressed in the heroic epic. For women, however, such assertions of questing self-hood have been deemed bizarre and crazy; consequently the Gothic mode -- and in particular the concept of self as monster -- is associated with narratives of female experience.

In their Gothic narratives women reveal deep-seated conflicts between a socially acceptable passive, congenial, "feminine" self and a suppressed, monstrous hidden self. The monster remains an apt symbol for turbulent inner compulsions, particularly in poetry. However, the madwoman serves a similar symbolic function, and this figure appears more frequently in prose fiction. While the monster is a physical emblem of inescapable stigma, madness is a more subjective aberration which may be overcome when the character or society ceases to regard certain types of behavior as monstrous or crazy. In earlier versions of this genre no escape from social denigration and self-hatred is conceivable; in these closed-end works monsters are more prevalent and madwomen are unredeemable. Some recent writers, challenging traditional, stereotyped attitudes, are creating characters who transcend self-hatred. {124} These heroines experience madness as a stage on the journey toward self-knowledge. In these inner journeys -- the female equivalent of the male adventure -- the heroines learn to identify with their hidden selves and to reaffirm the values which had previously been denied. By this means they reintegrate split selves, restore their fragmented identities and return to sanity and social acceptance with open-ended possibilities before them.

Karen F. Stein, from Monsters and Madwomen: Changing Female Gothic, in The Female Gothic, ed. Julian E. Fleenor (Montreal: Eden, 1983), pp. 123-37.

#diptych #linked excerpts #research for ufp

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gemsofgreece · 2 years ago

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This is something brilliant I found on quora. Aside from the band-orchestra comparison that I have no opinion on as I should know many, many languages to dare tackle that, and which is a parallel that could perhaps only be justified coming from a man passionate enough to get a PhD in Greek literature and ethics, Mr Bošković is actually on point in what he says.

Typical western academia gets wet over Ancient Greek and typically scorns Modern Greek without a proper explanation, to the point of just referring to one form of the language: Greek, and calling it dead. In their minds, there can only be one form of Greek, the ancient one, and it is dead for good. Modern Greek doesn’t belong with their academic and lingual concerns.

But Bošković, who has obviously studied a greater span of the Greek language than the average stuck-up classicist, puts it so well and in such a short and simple text that I could never do it. I always thought Modern Greek is more flexible than Ancient Greek but I couldn’t explain why well. Here it is then: what many don’t realise is that Modern Greek operates in a very liberal fashion. It takes elements from large lingual pools. It has the Ancient Greek pool all to itself, to take elements at will. It can choose between very archaic, Koine / biblical / medieval or folk neo-linguistic elements or fuse them all together, technically without restrictions. The historical contact to Latin, Italian, Turkish, Slavic, Arabic and Albanian populations gives it access to the Romantic, Anatolian, oriental and non-Greek Balkan pools. Modern Greek has a very good ability to bend foreign elements enough to make them adjust to the Greek core of the language, instead of adjusting to them (ie all foreign loanwords are bent to follow Greek grammatic rules of inflection and their vocalisations usually change enough so that they are entered smoothly in the language). The local idiomatic element is also significant in every region and is particularly alluring in prose and verse (hence my recent comment that I prefer modern - but NOT contemporary - Greek prose).

That doesn’t mean that I don’t love Ancient Greek prose and verse. But here is the crucial nuance: the ancients and medieval people did their best to write in the highest form of the language they could master. When we read an ancient text, we witness the earnest efforts of the ancient poets and writers to be glorified through their writing.

Modern speech is unfortunately deteriorating* and we can’t compare the potential of the two ages of the language. Contemporary writers aren’t putting an effort to write in the highest lingual form they can master. On the contrary, they strive to be relevant and, in fact, as non-challenging as possible, so that they will cater to a wide, mainstream audience. And because everyone can write nowadays - it is not an activity saved for the wisest or most educated - there is a load of mediocre lingual usage inside which a specimen of high lingual form can be viewed as eccentric, pretentious and eventually undesirable.

Because of this, Modern Greek cannot utilise all its tools anymore (as well as many other languages to their own degree, of course). Reading the Iliad in its original has been fantastic so far and I was wondering why we can’t write like this anymore but now I am realising that there is nothing to prevent us from doing it from a technical aspect. There are no dead words in Greek. There are words which have become rarely used enough that some people would consider you a weirdo for using them and others would themselves refuse to learn, convinced there is no use in taking an extra step. Words that are recorded in texts, words whose meaning we know, can’t be dead, even if they are rarely used. It’s the obsession of the average person to follow the mainstream trend that threatens a word more than anything else. Another fact is that Greeks of different ages fluctuate between different forms of grammar, unsure whether a more archaic or more modern inflection is appropriate. The truth is that there is no wrong way, however Greek linguists lately try to wipe out older, more archaic forms in exchange for newer, simpler ones. The intent is always to become as approachable, as unchallenging as possible. There is no de facto death of older types of usage as long as they are recorded and we know how they work and some of us use them still - it’s literally a few linguists trying to give Modern Greek a distinct, simpler identity by ignoring the language’s most crucial characteristic: its flexibility.

Νεφεληγερέτης Ζεύς is a common characterisation of Zeus in the Iliad (Nepheliyerétis Zeús - Zeus the Cloud-gatherer) . There is no real reason to prevent someone from using this phrase intact nowadays, as both roots of the first word do exist in modern Greek. And even if someone was too self-conscious about writing so ambitiously, they could do with a more modern or folkish version like νεφελοστοιβάχτης or συννεφοστοιβάχτης or νεφομαζωχτής or νεφελαθροιστής (ie nephelostiváchtis, sinephostiváchtis, nephomazochtís, nephelathristís). Would they though? No, they wouldn’t. Why take the extra step?

My point is, Modern Greek is an overlooked, extremely potent language and we do exactly nothing with or about it.

*Whoever is quick to argue that a language never deteriorates because it always morphs into a reflection of its respective nation / society and its needs should either stop fooling themselves or immediately get alarmed by the current state of the respective society at question.

#languages #greek #greek language #lingual stuff #linguistics #opinion #rant #langblr

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panbaric · 7 months ago

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the mire? 🥹🤲

This is the first Lestappen I ever put to paper, and it's undergoing major revisions as I didn't love initial characterisations in it...friends keep bugging me to bite the bullet and write it in its entirety. It's another Ferrari-as-a-thinly-veiled-matephor-for-the-Catholic-Church and follows an alternate 2022. Beginning of the season Ferrari comes into possession of some..compromising material re: Max, and how that changes Charles and Max's relation to each other, the championship charge, and Charles' hunger and desperation to do right by the church of Scuderia Ferrari. Inspo is Psalm 69 (I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hooves.) and I listened pretty exclusively to Chinese Satellite and She Calls Me Back while planning/writing it.

Cheeky little excerpt below, it's some of my more pretentious prose so be warned.

Mattia is one of the only people that Charles has met that signs his name on the end of every text. He’s also the only team principal that Charles has known who refuses to communicate in anything other than Italian. Ferrari is not like other teams he said to Charles once when he had tried to switch languages to their native French. It is more than a manufacturer. It is an institution. To bring it back to its former glory we first have to follow the rules set down by those who came before us.

Charles is lucky, Italian sits easy on his tongue, flows from his mind out into the world. It’s not French, nothing is really, but it feels more somehow, like the split second extra effort it requires to remember to pronounce the vowels, to change the gender of objects, renders his words more meaningful, more holy.

Carlos doesn’t agree with him, his Italian is harsh and arduous, shaped by the scorching Spanish sun and spices. He’s scowling when he meets Charles in the cafeteria at 8:50.

“I don’t want to say good morning, because it’s hardly good,” Carlos says, in English, as Charles reaches him by the coffee counter.

“Statti zitto,” Charles hisses, looking around. “Cosa diavolo perché parli inglese quando siamo qui?”

(Shut up, why the hell are you speaking English here?)

Carlos rolls his eyes and sighs, “Estas como una cabra Charles.” However, his next words come out in Italian, albeit slower and more halting than his greeting. “It’s a small meeting, just us, Mattia and a couple of PR people.”

Charles frowns, as he takes the cappuccino offered to him. “Do we have any idea what it’s about?”

Carlos shrugs, obviously not in the mood to be chatty in his third language.

#asks #anon #the mire #lestappen #title tag game

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herrlindemann · 2 years ago

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Sonic Seducer - February 2003, interview with Till

Thanks to ramjohn for the scans!

Till Lindemann doesn't like to talk. Since 1995, the Leipzig-born Berliner-by-choice has been sharing what he has to say with the lyrics of his band Rammstein, using his very own imagery to the music world, which is now taking notice around the world. There were almost never any explanations; Misunderstandings and misinterpretations, on the other hand, by the meter. His first volume of poetry, Messer, was recently published. Now we must speak. Plain text with Till Lindemann.

Probably only a few local bands of popular music have been misinterpreted, misunderstood or simply slandered to a similar extent as Rammstein, who already with their first album 'Herzeleid' more or less intentionally became the typical German problem child from supposedly violence-glorifying Leni Riefenstahl aesthetics meets Bodybuilding studio sledgehammer charm support Teutonic lyrics of the most morbid color and international mega rock stardom. One of the main people responsible: Frontman and lyricist Till Lindemann, who now gives an insight into collected poems from a good two decades in 'Messer' and who today, after many years of reluctance, publishes such as Der Spiegel, Focus, Welt am Sonntag, TAZ and similar speech and answer stands. Escape to the feuilleton or the real end of the cold (information) war?

Lindemann, the eternally misunderstood one.

« Neither of the two. The fact is that I very rarely and very reluctantly give interviews about my work. So many things have been overrated in the past that I actually don't feel like expressing myself anymore. But this time there are unfortunately not five colleagues who could represent me at this point. It's not that I'm still annoyed by any rumours, half-truths and strange interpretations, but I don't have to actively contribute to their creation. In the case of Rammstein, the success proves us right and makes us above any stupid accusations. There is this typical German calf-biting mentality of wanting to pee on everyone's leg. We now smile at this with a clear conscience. Certainly, with 'Messer' I make myself vulnerable again in a certain way. If the media are not able to reproduce my statements in the actual context this time either, there will probably be no more statements from me in the future. »

Clear words. However, one should be all the more free with the poems in 'Messer', which, roughly in the manner of Rammstein, express in their very own way Lindemann's fondness for explicit and metaphorical depictions of the primal instincts of violence, sex and death, which are often misunderstood, and thus express the millennia-old Reflect the engine of human development between plush pink prose and the gnarliest gutter expressionism in all its range. Lindemann, the versatile one. Strictly speaking, a rather unusual career that began in 1979 in the then workers' and farmers' state as the son of a writer from Schwerin with an apprenticeship as a carpenter and defined itself over the years through the intersections of carpenter and basket maker. Subsequent work as a gallery technician, drummer for the punk band First Arsch and ultimately Rammstein's lyrical and visual figurehead left their mark. Today: Till Lindemann 2003 - artificial figure or multifunctional personal union of musician, lyricist, lyricist, entertainer, rock star, artist?

“Definitely not an artificial figure. Basically, I see myself as a copywriter who is currently making the first steps as a poet. The whole book is a kind of flashback; a conclusion, a showcase. Comparable to the existence of a band that, after 20 songs, decides to immortalize the whole thing on an album. The publisher Gerd Hof and I made a selection from more than 1000 poems from a good 15 years, which we wanted to publish in Messer. Like probably every artist, I am to a large extent inspired by my environment. In a way, the texts represent a reckoning with myself, revenge on myself and also a coming to terms with myself. It doesn't matter whether this is caused by dreams, nightmares, films, books and just a walk. I'm actually a 24/7 receptive medium who usually has my notepad within reach. My type of texts is almost exclusively subconscious. When I sit down with the thought of writing something positive, something dark comes out of it anyway, because there seems to be some kind of automatic negative flow inside me. » Which in the final form of the text can of course not be enjoyed without the necessary, tongue-in-cheek and often neglected distance and, on closer inspection, does not want to deny certain (albeit dark) humoresque intersections with 1960s comedy icon Heinz Erhardt. ‘Herzeleid’ without sheet music? Lindemann does not play melodies. But he laughs and nods. And vowels aren't rrrrolled this time.

« That is indeed a very good paraphrase. Surely the lyrics are superficially characterized by violence and every kind of provocation. But a closer reading also reveals a latent, almost comic-like joke that most people go unnoticed. Although the lyrics are almost exclusively created subconsciously from a word, a vague idea or a story, I still leave a kind of back door open somewhere, so that you can usually still somehow smile about the lyrics. This is certainly most evident in the poem 'Big In Japan', which I wrote after visiting a night bar in Tokyo. There was an artist there who hung really enormous weights from his cock. It is well known that the Japanese aren't very well endowed by nature, but the whole thing was raised so big that the pastiche based on the Alphaville song was simply compelling. There is nothing more satisfying and interesting for an artist than creating friction, polarizing and observing the many different reactions. In the case of Messer, this ranges from fear to dismay to genuine pleasure. I'm sure I ask myself from time to time: what kind of monster did I actually create? But on the other hand, you also chuckle to yourself now and then and are happy about your little, dirty, black something. »

So willful provocation combined with negligently conjured up misinterpretation as a stylistic device to intentionally break a taboo? The name Rammstein was used more as a battle cry than as an elementary contextual component, and not only in the chorus of the debut single ‘Wollt Ihr das Bett in Flammen sehen’? Till Lindemann: Federal citizen terror. Enfant terrible. Gigolo of morbid eroticism.

« We/I don't aim to be misunderstood at any price, but on the other hand it's always very fun to watch how people get upset in this country and what waves this band is making. Otherwise, the tool of provocation is no longer as interesting for us today as it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back then it was almost all about being as evil, provocative and bold as possible; just doing something new and wacky in German. Today it's about other things, the art and the overall result are our top priority. On the other hand, it's not my thing to interpret my texts in a great way and to give content a certain direction. It's much more exciting for everyone when people can make up their own minds about art such as pictures, texts or sculptures and the artist doesn't also have to be enlightened. I've found that many people have been disappointed in the real meaning of my lyrics since they've already made up their own minds and my final explanation must have seemed far more unspectacular than they imagined. Some things are better left unsaid... »

The specially made photos also play an important role in 'Messer', which show Lindemann in an unusual pose in the midst of a whole army of naked mannequins as an androgynous outsider - supposedly far removed from the self-chosen, superficial gloomy macho image of the muscle-bound pyromaniac on the prowl female prey. « The interpretation is completely free in the context of the poem/photo and vice versa. It is a very interesting experiment to see how the perspective on the poems changes with the help of the photos, what different variations are possible. There is no direct correspondence between the two art forms, but if you want, a small dialogue can be established. The pictures certainly show me from another side that you may not have known about me before... », but which, on closer inspection, reveal exactly the individual who, at its core, constitutes the true protagonist in Lindemann's work: the vulnerable one, looking for affection and security the craving oddball, the outcast freak, the sensitive love killer in search of fulfillment - there are many role descriptions in his very own personality pattern, potential misunderstandings always included.

#Rammstein #Till Lindemann #2003 #interview #translation #*scans #*

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storyofthenauseouseye · 1 year ago

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Passionate Prose From A Perverted Philosopher: Bataille’s Poetry

Most people are not familiar with the works or life of Georges Bataille. I don't blame them. I'm sure my professor is looking at this with fearful eyes, praying I'm not actually about to start a post on the Georges Bataille, the notorious anti-philosopher and writer whose works have made him rather infamous. Well, don't worry. I'm not about to make a whole post on surrealist literary fetish pornography. No, we're going to take a more muted approach and look at Bataille's key concepts and ideas through his poetry.

There are no graphic depictions of masturbating with a chicken egg here, folks. Just some twentieth-century poetry so dark it helped inspire the lyricism of the black metal genre movement (a movement that included the burning of churches and ended with the murder of some people).

Ambrogio Antonio Alciati, The Kiss, 1917.

Key Concepts

Hopping from surrealism, to eroticism, to religion, and eventually starting an occult group, Bataille's writing is anitsystematic, and it's diffiicult to categorize into a few labels. Thankfully, there are prevalent themes that shine through the messy, dark chaos that he left behind. These themes are predominantly themes of myth, pain, and social transgression (Mambrol).

The easiest way to explore those themes is to sort through the poetry of Bataille. Bataille was a surrealist, and actually was an associate of Andre Breton until Breton and he got into an argument and Bataille distanced himself from the group and the movement.

Myth

Myth is the first predominant theme in the library of Bataille.

Despite being on-and-off Christian and occultist, Bataille's swings of loving and hating God, spirituality, and the cosmic experience of existence was something he found a lot of room for. Not only did this appear in his specultaive fiction and autobiographical philosophical works, but this also appeared with the confines of his poetry.

O dead God O dead God Me I hounded you with hatred unfathomable I would die of hatred as a cloud is undone

(Bataille and Kendall, 11)

Per this untitled example, Bataille has no problems saying the kinds of things that got him in trouble in his time. His disdain for traditional myth and religious iconography is only rivaled by his own strange hypocrisy. Going in and out of different religions and spiritual seasons, Bataille would often write in favor of these myths.

"At the height of the heavens / the angels, I hear their voices, glorify me / I am, under the sun, an errant ant" (Bataille and Kendall, 13).

Here, Bataille was in a season of deep religious fervor. He felt so small to the passionate outpouring of the heavens, a glrious feeling that he would write many poems about. This love and hate relationship with mythology and relgious structures would pave the way for many of his stranger, more ethereal works.

Pain

To say Georges Bataille was emo would be to undersell his emotionally black works. The suffering and emotional torment he speaks of isn't that of a Pierce the Veil song, rather his kind of authentic pain belongs to something more in line with DSBM (depressive suicidal black metal). It doesn't come as a surprise, he practically invented the lyricism for the black metal genre as a whole.

Verses about suffering, stars, violence, galactic existentialism, nihilism, strange fetishistic imagery, Satan, and either an extreme reverance for religion, or the dismal rejection of it, this specific niche of harsh music couldn't exist without Bataille's own flavor of self hatred (Bereshith and Fas).

Take, for example, such extreme verses as

I scream at the sky that it's not me who is screaming in this lacerating thunderstorm it's not me who is dying it's the starry skies the starry sky screams the starry sky cries I fall asleep and the world is forgotten (Bataille and Kendall, 34)

As you can see, the edgelord himself, Bataille, outdoes a good amount of the goth and emo campiness. He settles for something a good bit more horrific, including depictions of murder and violent sexual content. But why? Why write poems about vehement antireligious and religious ideologies, self destructive tendiencies, gross sex, and violence? Because Bataille was a transgressive author.

Left: Deathspell Omega, Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice, 2004. Right: Deathspell Omega, Deathspell Omega Logo, 1998

Social Transgression

Bataille was a transgressive philosopher and artist. Despite being an antisystematic writer whose interests were scattered, it is impossible to fight the fact that he was a figure of transgression.

Transgressive art is art that defies rules, laws, expectations, or norms. It is often shocking and causes quit ethe controversy. Other examples of transgressive artists would be Marilyn Manson, Jorg Buttgereit, Marquis de Sade, Rozz Williams, and John Waters.

I won't touch upon the topic of "is shock art true art" but I will say that Bataille and others like hm went on to make quit ethe names for themselves. Although these ideas and tpics may not be that taboo to the social norms of today, it disturbed many people to read something such as

Bird's laughter filthy with blood crash of ice from teeth filth screaming vomiting head hung in horror (Bataiile and Kendall, 129).

I mean, when a dude from a band called Deathspell Omega does an interview and lists you as a reference of inspiration, you've probably said some dark stuff that caught on with a very specific crowd of people.

And if you think tat's bad, look into his novel, The Story of the Eye. I dare you.

Works Cited

Bataille, Georges, and Stuart Kendall. The Poetry of Georges Bataille. Translated by Stuart Kendall, State University of New York Press, 2018.

Bereshith, and Fas. “Interview with Deathspell Omega from AJNA Offensive.” Deathspell Omega, https://ezxhaton.kccricket.net/interview.html. Accessed 8 December 2023.

Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Key Concepts of Georges Bataille – Literary Theory and Criticism.” Literary Theory and Criticism, 2 May 2017, https://literariness.org/2017/05/02/key-concepts-of-georges-bataille/. Accessed 8 December 2023.