#i feel this demon's ennui in my soul

[monstersohmy]

Demonic Bliss

“Smile!” This chirping young man stood on a bench to take the photo from above. The girl pulled close to the demon with her left arm around his craggy shoulders. She made a kissy face and held two fingers of her right hand in a V. 

Wneurc couldn’t smile due to a lack of lips, but humored the human by opening his jaw wide to expose his curved yellow teeth and the steam that perpetually seeped from his mouth. 

“Such a great costume!” she marveled, taking her phone back. Her finger flew across the glass.

“What’s your Instagram? I’m an influencer- a thousand followers. This’ll be great for your brand.” 

This brand thing again. “I don’t have one. But, do you know where I go to request asylum?” 

The couple stared blankly.

“Like…a mental hospital?” the young man asked. 

“No,” Wneurc sighed. “A place where I can request safe haven. Where I can defect.” 

“Oh! Yeah!” the young man exclaimed. “You go to your country’s embassy. They’re all over the place in D.C. Just, like, show people a pic of your country's flag. Someone will know where it is." 

Wneurc thanked them for the information and plodded on down the sidewalk, working his way to the nearest Metro station. Embassy was always the humans’ answer. Hell had no embassy here that he knew of. 

“Ohmygodwait! I have an idea!” The girl ran back to him. “Try a church. I saw a movie once where this guy stood on a church yelling ‘SANCTUARY!’ and the church had to protect him. There’s one a few blocks that way. St. Joseph. Ohmygod you should live stream that! It would be so great for your brand!” 

Later that day, Wneurc stood in front of the grey stone church; what kind, he did not know. The human writing meant nothing to him, but he recognized the symbol adorning the sign and the space above the door and the steeple. A cross. HIS cross. 

Hopefully, he wouldn't combust before reaching the inside. Deep inhale, long exhale. Then, Wneurc rumbled up the steps and exploded into the nave. 

“SANCTUARY!” Wneurc shouted, steam rolling in a thick fog from his mouth. His knobby skin smoked, his feet burned worse than the deepest pit of Hell, and his insides gurgled violently. Every evil bit of him screamed to run, but he was committed to change.

Wneurc had made so many souls feel what he was feeling now, and often worse. He’d walked this land disguised as human, whispering, cajoling, nudging them toward the corruption that would later land them in his workshop or one like it. 

The work eventually had lost its lustre and he fell into a rut. Joy, fulfillment had drained away. All that was left was the motions of the job. Something had to change. Something drastic. 

Inspiration had come from a woman who continuously shrieked, “LIVELAUGHLOVE!” through her torment. During breaks, she would whimper the phrase. “live…laugh…love.” 

What was livelaughlove? What made her hold on to it so far into her fate? For the first time since he was a young demon, Wneurc was curious, interested. So, he set out on this journey. 

Up top, he quickly discovered that people who chant livelaughlove are the most annoying humans on Earth and that woman probably got what she deserved. 

But he was finally engaged after all this time. It had to be explored. He had to find his bliss.

“SANCTUARY!” he bellowed again. 

A white-haired priest calmly sauntered toward the demon, shaking his head and lifting his palm. Wneurc groaned in disappointed weariness. Expulsion appeared imminent. 

“Fine,” the priest sighed. “Sanctuary. Whatever.” 

Instantly, the pain stopped. Wneurc felt light. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

“Yeah, sure. Hey, Jennaphyrh!” the priest called out. “We’ve got another demon with a midlife crisis! Find him a cot and get him up to speed on how thing work around here. Also, do an email blast. Let the network know St. Joseph is full up and can’t accept any more.” 

An elephant faced demon loped up the aisle. “Of course, Father.” 

“How’d you get here? How’d you pick this church?” as Jennaphyrh led Wneurc away.

He told her of the livelaughlove soul and the influencer girl.

“You have no idea how many influencers are actually demons masquerading as humans," she nodded. "It’s such an effective mode of corruption and looks so fun! I’m think of leaving here to try it. Anyway, on Wednesdays we do Bible study--” 

Wneurc stopped short. “What.” 

“It’s ok!” Jennaphyrh laughed. “This happens all the time. You still love your job; you’re just bored. The Bible offers so many new, horrible ways to corrupt humans and torture them when they get to Hell. You are going to love it here.” 

[stories-and-chaos]

Shrike: Deal Makers

[Hazbin Hotel reader insert as Alastor’s “darling life and death partner” Ace x ace relationship, both parties are moderately sex favorable.]

[One shot, word count 3629, Cw: violence, blood, death, attempted assault, cursing]

——————

The sounds of Pentagram City, gunshots, screams, and explosions, were a vague drone from within your home. Alastor was perusing the newspaper while you looked over the selection on the bookshelf. You’d read all the books at least once. Many were worn from being read multiple times over the decades. None of them was immediately appealing though.

You heard the crackle of radio static as your husband noticed your hesitation. The lanky demon set aside the paper to focus on you. “Trouble deciding my dear?” he asked, the hint of amusement in his voice telling you he had thought of something interesting.

You looked over at him, relaxing at the breakfast table. “Just a bit bored darling. Anything in the news I should know?” You poured yourself some coffee before sitting across from him.

“Hmm, nothing unusual. The rabble securing space before Extermination Day.” The yearly event was roughly a month away and demons were stepping up their preparations. It was similar to humans boarding up their homes before an incoming hurricane. You couldn’t stop the force of nature (or Heaven), you had to try to weather through it. “I’ll admit I’m feeling some ennui myself.” He sipped his coffee before continuing.

“Although…I did have a thought for some entertainment, cher,” he mused, his smile becoming more of a smirk as he raised an eyebrow temptingly.

“Really? Do share Alastor, don’t leave me in suspense.” You leaned forward, both elbows on the table as you cupped your mug in both hands.

His grin widened. “We know how desperate demons get around now, yes? Souls are easy pickings. So, let’s play a game my dear Y/N.” Your eyes brightened at the prospect and you could feel your wings rustling in anticipation. He continued, “Let’s have a contest between the two of us, cher. Who can acquire the most souls before Extermination Day? The one who loses…” he glanced around your home, trying to think of a consequence.

“The one with fewer new souls does all the dishes for a month. By hand,” you suggested. Neither of you enjoyed washing dishes and being able to use your wind or his shadow tentacles made the chore moderately tolerable.

The two of you had played other games and contests in your afterlife. The stakes for losing were ultimately low between you. You were partners after all. Trapping one’s partner in a deal had no appeal to yourself or Alastor.

Deal making with any other demon? That was entertainment.

“Excellent!” His ears perked up and his antlers stretched slightly as he agreed. This would be a perfect way to alleviate your boredom.

An hour later, the two of you strolled together to a plaza in your shared territory. Alastor took your hand and pressed your talons to his lips. “Bonne chance, cher.”

You used a bit of wind to raise you up so you could easily give him a peck on the cheek. “May the best Overlord win.” You backed up enough not to knock him over with your downdraft and took to the sky. Alastor twirled his cane and strolled off in another direction, humming in amusement.

It was times like this that you missed Husk’s casino. It had been an easy hunting ground. You tend to ensnare souls over time. Offer something small that they desperately wanted. Again and again, building up favors with the other demon. Eventually the favors could only be paid with their soul. Or if they had managed to keep their debt to you to a minimum, they would come to a point where what they wanted wasn’t something small. And if you could provide multiple small deals, surely you could make a substantial deal with them, even if it meant their soul.

The casino had been perfect for that, giving you ample opportunity to tempt Sinners with enough cash for another hand or another roll of the dice. And they always came back for more. A favor to a delicate little thing like you was essentially free.

Until it wasn’t.

But sadly, Alastor owned Husk now and his casino was safely tucked away amid dozens of other strongholds of former Overlords. So you had to find other places to play the game.

Of course there were other places to gamble in Hell. But you didn’t have the same understanding with the proprietors; waltzing in to offer collateral to desperate patrons wasn’t encouraged. Bars and drug dens had just as many degenerate souls craving funds you could offer.

At the moment however, the whole city was clawing to avoid Extermination Day. Being out on the streets was second suicide. If you couldn’t secure a hiding place on your own, working for someone who could provide one was the best option. Protection was worth more than money for the majority.

While Alastor looked like a powerful Overlord, you weren’t immediately intimidating. Sometimes you wished you were of a similar mold to Carmilla or Zeezi. Few doubted them, their presence was so powerful. You were what you were however. You hadn’t let your form stop you yet.

Landing in a distant section of the pentagram, you kept your eyes and ears open for potential opportunities as you walked. Sure enough, you found a perfect chance. And it reminded you of how you met Alastor.

A much more run down neighborhood than you frequented, the Sinners here had no issue with committing atrocities in the streets. Case in point; a trio of demons cornered a much smaller one. “You don’t wanna be all alone on Extermination Day, do you babe?” one of them said. He looked like a skeleton held together by acidic gel. One bony hand was pressed against the wall, cutting off the small cat-like demon’s escape.

The cornered demon shook his head mutely, his eyes pinning in fear. One of the other Sinners, this one a blue and orange cyclops, spotted you. “Whatcha looking at birdie? You can come along too, you’re cute enough.” The third demon moved to grab your arm in a lizard claw. His yellowed scales gleamed as he swung you up to the wall.

You could have broken away, but where was the fun in that? Besides, this was an opportunity to establish yourself in this area.

“Oooo, two for one special. C’mon bitches, we’ll keep you nice and safe from the big bad angels. All you gotta do is work for us.” The skeleton grinned, a green haze leaking between his teeth. “Couple cuties like you, we’ll make you bigger stars than that spider twink.”

The demon next to you shrank into himself, unconsciously hiding behind your wing. You put on a concerned air. “Oh mais la cher, I don’t think you can keep yourselves safe. You all look rather…what’s the word…pathetic, that’s it!” The cat demon looked at you like you were insane.

“What the fuck did you say?”

“I said you all looked pathetic. Weak? Unable to perform? I can go on.” The skeleton pulled back his arm to slap you. Or he tried. The instant he moved, you produced a stiletto that you jammed into his throat. He stumbled back, blade dislodging, with green fluid bubbling out from this mouth and neck wound.

“Bones!” the cyclops yelped as the gel melted away from the demon. That was his name?! You felt more than justified removing such a cliche punk from the afterlife. Before he could do more than yell, you thrust the blade into his giant orange eye. It was a much more convenient target than the man you first killed decades ago. Retinal fluid gushed out as he screamed, flailing at the stiletto.

The lizard demon backed away. “Fuck this shit!” He skittered away on all fours, disappearing into the sparse crowd. You let him go. Dead demons told no tales after all. If you wanted demons looking to you for protection, then you needed tales to spread.

Your talons had fluid splashed all over. “Ew,” you said mildly. The gore didn’t scare you, you’d gotten over that fear in life. But that didn’t mean you enjoyed being covered in it. You flicked your hands back and forth, a bit of wind helping to get the worst off and dry your hands.

The cyclops continued to moan in pain next to the pile of bones that was his buddy. You delicately sidestepped around him, avoiding the splatter of blood and fluid he was making as he thrashed around. “W-w-wait! Wait wait please!” came a shaky call from behind you.

You couldn’t help but grin before twirling around. The cat demon had stumbled forward, reaching for you. “You…you saved me.”

“I suppose I did. You’re welcome, cher,” you said in an airy tone as you started to move away.

“No, please! Help me! I’m not gonna make it through Extermination Day, please I’ll do anything!” he called, fear mixing with hope in his voice. Apparently he was having a very bad time in Hell and saw you as a lifeline.

“Anything? That’s quite a lot to offer to a demon you just met.” You faced him fully. Drawn by the cyclop’s cries and the sense of drama, a small crowd started to gather. “What’s your name?”

“André.”

“Y/N, the Singing Shrike.” There was a murmur in the crowd as some recognized your name. “If you’re willing to offer anything to an Overlord, then I’m willing to make a deal. My protection for your soul.” You held out your hand, still stained with retinal fluid and now emitting a silver light. “Do we have a deal?”

André’s ears flattened as he looked back and forth between your hand and the two demons, one dead and one dying, at your feet. “It’s a deal.” He clasped your hand firmly with his paw. There was a swirl of wind around you both that formed into a collar and chain on your new subordinate’s neck. It was only visible for a second. That’s one, you thought in satisfaction.

“Wonderful!” you chirped, clapping your hands once. “It’s always a delight to form new bonds, is it not? Now then, I’m feeling a bit parched. Let’s find something to drink while we discuss your future André.”

The reality of what he’d just done seemed to be sinking in, but he followed you anyway. It took a couple of blocks of walking before you found a decent looking coffee shop. You ordered two coffees, settled at an outdoor table and gestured at André to sit with you. The coffee was decent and you sipped the hot liquid before focusing on the cat demon.

“Now then. I’m sure you didn’t wake up this morning planning to sell your soul. You’re welcome to live and work wherever you like, so long as you understand that when I call you, you will be there. Follow my orders and we’ll get along fine. Now, what are your skills?”

It turned out he was a stage actor. He’d only been in Hell for a year and a half. The prospect of trying to survive Extermination Days every year made him a literal scaredy cat. Finding out he was an actor was a bonus. “That is perfect. Most of my followers are performers, you’ll fit right in, cher.” You penned an address on a card. “One of the theaters in my district. They’re auditioning after Extermination Day. I can set you up in our territory or you can keep staying where you are. Either way, I’ll call you on the Day to hold up my end of the deal.”

With that you sent him on his way; he said he’d take a look at your territory before deciding. Now you could drink your coffee and wait.

Before long, a female Sinner that had been in the crowd approached you. She looked like a luna moth, soft fluff and light green wings. “Miss Y/N? Are… are you… willing to make other deals?”

“Depending on the terms and the demon. Take a seat, cher, let’s talk.”

By the end of the day, you had five more souls in addition to André. The area you had come to wasn’t currently in dispute, but whoever was in charge was not doing a great job of maintaining any kind of order. So a decent handful were looking for someone, anyone, that could offer more security.

You were back home before Alastor and decided to start preparing dinner. Shrimp and grits sounded perfect after a day of negotiations. Alastor seemed to agree when he arrived. Over dinner the two of you compared your days.

Unsurprisingly, he had a slight number advantage already. But the game had just started and you weren’t about to concede to a mere three soul lead. He’d made a deal with a demon struggling to maintain a few blocks of territory. Once Alastor had the leader on a leash, the few souls he’d owned became Alastor’s as well.

For his part, your husband was thrilled at your disposal of two lowlifes and the lure you’d set in that area. “You’ve come a long way from a singer with a hat pin my dear.”

“So have you darling, from a radio host stalking the night with a knife.”

The month passed. Some days you returned to where you acquired André. Word had spread and other Sinners looking to avoid a second death came to offer their souls for safety. Other days you did offer small deals in other areas, building up to gaining a soul.

Some of your new demons spread word to their friends. And others heard of you from the lizard demon you let escape. Including the wannabe ruler of the neighborhood you were siphoning souls from.

There was a week left before Extermination Day and the end of your contest with Alastor. You had returned to the coffee shop you’d essentially taken over for negotiations. The owner had actually made a deal with you not too long ago, after witnessing you make so many without abusing your new subordinates. So she now had a source of better coffee and new machines due to be installed after Extermination Day. In the meantime she kept you and whoever joined your table supplied with drinks and snacks.

The crowd of Sinners approaching you now didn’t look like they were coming to negotiate however. They looked ready for a fight. One of the baristas whispered, “That’s the leader of the area and his gang, Miss.” You finished your drink and handed the cup to them. “Have everyone stay inside until I come in, cher.” The barista gladly dashed in the shop. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see the workers and customers within scuttling about.

You leaned back in the metal chair as they came up to your table. The group of roughly a dozen demons was led by a skeleton with poisonously purple gel attaching all his joints. Fluid bubbled within the rib cage and a dull blue haze surrounded his shoulders. You simply waited, talons interlaced.

Your silence and slight smile irritated the tall creature. He was used to small female demons being intimidated by him and his goons. Evidently your calm was unnerving.

“So you're the bitch stealing all my people huh?” he finally hissed at you.

You tilted your head, “That’s a very interesting definition of ‘stealing.’ It’s rather difficult to steal something that doesn’t belong to anyone. And I can’t really blame any of the residents for coming to me after seeing the state of things here.”

He slammed a fist on the table, denting it. “First you kill my cousin, then you snatch away my people and now you insult me? I’m gonna show you your place girlie.”

His crowd of sycophants started hyping him up: “You tell her boss, fuck that bitch up, show her whatcha got Knuckles, she’s gotta pay for Bones.” This fool’s name was Knuckles? This lot was just sad if they couldn’t think of anything better.

The haze around his shoulders turned into flames as the bones of his hands grew. More flames erupted along his arms and fingers as his hands turned into spiked boxing gloves.

In response, you summoned dozens of stilettos into the air. They glimmered briefly before launching at the group. Squishy thuds were followed by cries of pain as the blades found their targets; eyes, throats, guts. Knuckles whipped his head around at his crew suddenly dropping in a dozen bloody messes.

You stood up, made sure of your footing, and leapt at the surprised bag of bones. You were too close to manage a flip, but a stab to the torso worked just fine. Or so you thought. As the leader stumbled down, carried by your momentum along with the sudden pain, the gel holding him together spewed fluid from the wound.

All that vibrant color was for a reason you realized as your hand burned with whatever the bastard was filled with splashed on your hand. “Fuck!” You kneed the skeleton in the jaw, sending him flat on his back, before quickly making a little whirlwind around your hand to get the fluid off.

Hissing through the pain, you planted a heeled foot on his skull. “Do you own any souls?” you asked roughly. Amazing how well the skeleton could show fear and confusion. You repeated the question, enunciating each word. He shook head. “Mais la, too bad.” You pulled your foot back slightly, turning his head. Then you kicked sharply with a gust for added power, twisting his head away and snapping his neck.

Stepping into the coffee shop, you called out, “All clear ladies and gentlemen. Zoe,” you gestured to the owner, “I need your last aid kit and the sink. And someone to clean up the mess.” You ran your burned hand under the water for a good twenty minutes, making sure you got all the acid(?) off. It was definitely a chemical burn but it was superficial. It would just hurt like a bitch.

Zoe helped you pay the area dry and wrap it in a clean bandage. “Are you going home Miss?” she asked nervously. You could guess any of the skeleton’s cronies that you hadn’t killed would be out for revenge once they realized he was dead. It was barely after lunch so there was ample time in the day for word to spread.

“And miss out on the next act?” You laughed as you settled back into your seat outside. “What kind of Overlord would I be if I left the job half done?” Only four demons came looking for trouble, but without you there that would have been even one too many.

Three joined their former boss in a heap of bodies. One, yet another gel connected skeleton with a blue color scheme, took a look at the pile of corpses, and decided selling his soul to you was the better option. Once you had the former grunt under your talon, you felt you could leave safely. You summoned a demon that had been with you for years. The hawk demon was used to being your occasional muscle. So you left the two of them to guard the shop. Meanwhile the body clean up decided burning the pile was their best option, especially with the acid skeleton mixed in. As you took off, they were lighting the gasoline drenched corpses on fire.

Alastor was home before you. Once he saw your bandaged hand he insisted on inspecting the wound. “Cher, how did this happen?” He asked, brows knitted as he unwrapped the bandage.

“Folly on my part. I didn’t realize the acidic looking demon was in fact, acidic.” Alastor examined the area and determined it was superficial as you thought. He applied ointment and rebandaged your hand. “At least now that I’ve killed that excuse for a gang leader it will be easier to acquire souls. I’ve got to close your lead cher.”

Your husband returned to the jambalaya he was preparing. “Are you still up to the contest my dear? I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to call it off now.”

“Of course I am!” You smacked the table with your good hand. “I’m not about to let a little injury stop me! I’m having too much fun.”

Your prediction was accurate. Without the neighborhood’s erstwhile leader and Extermination Day less than a week away, already desperate demons were losing their shit. You kept your new muscle, Calve, with you. He proved to be a decent informant. He resented you of course; you’d taken out his whole gang including his cousins. Your charm wore him down and by the end of the week he had a grudging respect for you.

Extermination Day arrived. The night before you had ensconced all your new souls into your territory. Doors and windows were fortified; the angels liked easy pickings and extra barriers meant they often went looking for other targets. It was only when they couldn’t find demons in the open that they started breaking down entrances.

In relative safety, you and Alastor finished your final tallies. 122 new souls for you and 124 for him. The last six days had helped you catch up but he still managed to squeak by a win.

“Ah, I do feel bad, making you wash all the dishes when your hand is still injured,” he mused as screams filled the air outside.

You examined your freshly bandaged hand. “Well, if you are that concerned, you can continue with the chore until I’m healed up. Should only be a few more days. I’ll even add a few days onto my end as an apology.”

“Hmm,” Alastor hummed, thinking it over. He grinned as another shriek pierced the air. “It’s a deal.”

———————

@whitewolfsoldat @edgyboi10000 @ch3sire-blu3 @clearly-awkward @badatpunz @bengewatch @chewbrry

[matcheadz]

Since I fucked up these past two months

Here are some abandoned scraps:

Nero was quiet for a moment. A moment longer than Vergil ever would have expected from the explosive young man. He flopped to the back of the couch, his head lolling to the side, slowly losing himself to some distant train of thought. Dante, on the other hand, pulled himself up and splayed his arms over the back of the couch.

“See, that doesn’t make sense, Verge. I had the keys and a deed before I could fly the proverbial nest. Or… maybe literal.” The only laugh he gets in response is his own.

“I had security. Mostly. What didn’t I have if my inner demon still wanted to take chunks out of… clients?”

Vergil stared at his brother for a moment, something cold and sharp sliding its way down his chest.

“What do you mean?” Vergil replied levelly.

Dante shrugged, a flat smile pulled over his tired face.

“Made business pretty hard, that first decade or so. Clients are less likely to trust a devil hunter if they think the hunter himself might be a front.”

Long dead and long silent, something inside Vergil thrashed. Not his demon, not really. Not completely. He froze as the strange feeling burned his palms, but also pushed incessantly at the inside of his ribcage.

Vergil’s demon had been a restless one for years. It had clawed and growled its fury—it’s terror, truly, for many years. Born from the moment it had been—in flame and loss and pain, it had sought balm from blood for weeks at a time until it cooled enough to control. Until he had happened across a port, with its air full of sea salt and arcana and… some kind of security that came from raven hair and laughter and now bittersweet promises of safety. He had cooled, abated to some degree. Found himself again, for however a brief moment—a carefree child of the world and no one else.

Dante had never found that security. Couch hopping for a decade, roaming the urban streets until one was fortunate enough to find a kind soul in a city of demons. The non-literal and the literal. What had happened to his little brother, Vergil wondered not for the first time since their reunion? What happened to the little boy whose smile was of sunflowers and sunshine and unending vigor brush away his own cool shade? The ennui was loosely hidden behind his drunkenness, but Vergil had always taken the imbibing as an imdesire to be rid of the feeling.

Now, as his brother quirked an eyebrow at his silence, he felt something congealed and painful slide its way down an artery. An all too familiar, cold regret.

“When did your demon finally mature?” Vergil implored quietly.

Dante blew a raspberry and lolled his head back.

“I dunno, when I was… maybe twenty-eight? That was around the time I…”

Dante quieted a moment.

“That’s when I met Trish.”

Vergil nodded in understanding.

…I Have Much To Thank Her For.

Dante gave him a look of complete incomprehension. Whether it was for what he said or what he meant, Vergil found it did not matter. He was a little too slow to cover the wince that followed.

“So…” Nero rasped, bringing one of the blankets further into his lap, “It’s like taking care of a kid.”

Both brothers turned their heads to him, almost as if they suddenly remembered his presence. Nero shrugged.

“After the Sanctimonious Asshole blew half the city to the kingdom of heaven with his evil fucking statue, the orphanage needed some extra hands. Kyrie and I felt we owed it to them to help out, but it was really Kyrie that did all the heavy lifting. I took over the Order… for a little bit… while she became their go-to for literally anything under the sun: childcare, education, record keeping, secretarial stuff. I even saw her training in the Foundling’s wing—where they put the kids who’s families they knew specifically died to the demon attacks. She told me she ‘owed them for giving her me,’ for a little bit…”

Nero chuckled something soft, his eyes fond as he recalled the memory. Vergil tilted his head curiously. That something knocked against his skull again.

do you remember?

Nero cleared his throat, his face aflame as he realized his own words. He coughed weakly into his shoulder.

“uh…anyways, that’s how we became foster parents. She started asking me if she could ‘take work home with her,’ and… well, I couldn’t say no.”

He stared off into the middle distance, jaw grinding.

“It sounds like new devils just need… what any kid needs, really. ‘It’s not just about providing a roof over their heads and food on their plates, it’s about the stability.’” Nero recited.

“…Consistency…” Dante mumbled curiously.

Nero nodded, “Right. Consistency. That’s how you get any of the children we work with to start coming out of their shell. Consistently keeping a routine, showing them they’re safe—that they have a herd. That’s what Kyrie told me, at least. And it’s been working so far.”

Vergil hummed, flipping the idea around in his mind. It seemed trivial. Not the concept of consistency itself—it was rather useful in honing crafts and skills to their perfection. Rather, the concept of providing constant… whatever this was. It rankled some defensive part of his mind, keen on proving he had no need of such frivolities. He was no mollycoddle. Yet…

“How…quaint.” Vergil replied derisively.

Nero frowned, but did not reply. Instead, he simply stared, and Vergil felt a small sense of recognition as her eyes looked him over. Oddly, he felt discomforted. Flayed.

“You have to make me a promise.” Nero’s tone was flat and intense; oddly familiar.

Vergil nodded silently.

“Kyrie can barely handle a .22 let alone Blue Rose. She’s not made for this kind of thing.”

*naahhhh I don't like this... I need a big BOOM!!*

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: My Favorite Anime of 2020 Are All Music Videos

Image via ZUTOMAYO

  Despite the enormous pressures of COVID-19, 2020 has had its share of anime classics. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is a stone-cold classic to the degree it now feels as if it’s always existed. Decadence channeled the creative spirit of 2000s-era Madhouse into an off-kilter riff on dystopian science fiction and Pixar movies. Akudama Drive, now in its second half, continues to translate the bonkers, heartfelt pulp style of Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka to TV anime. There have been big successes in film, as well — Demon Slayer Mugen Train scored the highest opening weekend box office in Japanese history, while folks I follow on Twitter are excited for the new Bones film Josee, the Tiger and the Fish.

  One of my favorite anime projects this year was something completely different. It’s "Gotcha!," a short Pokemon-themed music video directed by Rie Matsumoto and her friends at Bones. A sequence that takes all of Matsumoto’s strengths — her attention to detail, the way she depicts exciting and supernatural things bursting out of the walls of our ordinary world, and her obsession with cramming every layer of the screen with stuff — and turns them with the precision of a laser toward celebrating the series’s near 25-year history. As encyclopedic as a Pokedex despite being only three minutes long, it’s a glorious celebration of a series loved and made by passionate fans. 

  Image via Pokemon Official YouTube Channel

  But "Gotcha!" wasn’t even the only fantastic music video made by former employees from the historic studio Toei. Earlier this year, animator Koudai Watanabe collaborated with the talented Naoki Yoshibe — director of the opening sequences for Gatchaman Crowds — to create a music video for ZUTOMAYO titled “STUDY ME.” It’s a rich purple-and-green media landscape of TV screens, glitches, Undertale references, and desperately reaching hands, packed with enough wild ideas and visual iconography to fuel an entire season of anime. But it wraps up in just under five minutes.  You’re left watching the video over and over again in a daze, trying in vain to catch every little detail.

  The animated music videos being made right now represent the most slept-on creative success in modern anime production among English language fans. (That’s music videos that are animated, not AMVs! You could write an entirely separate article on those.) I need to qualify “slept on,” since hardcore animation nerds like Yuyucow and Catsuka have been stumping for these works over the past several years. There are viral successes like "Gotcha!" and the inevitable crossover that happens when an artist doing the theme song for an anime leads others to check out their back catalog of past videos. But on websites and in magazines, I see stories about Netflix’s aggressive production of new TV series, the renaissance of Japanese anime films after Your Name, and bemused reactions to the shocking popularity of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Talk about the newest music videos online is a lot rarer. Not to mention older videos. "Gotcha!" may have broken out as a celebration of a popular game series, but its predecessor — a Lotte chocolate commercial produced by much of the same staff — is just as good!

  Image via ZUTOMAYO

  "Gotcha!" isn’t 2020’s only spiritual successor to excellent early work, either. In 2013, Yoko Kuno produced the video "Airy Me" as part of a graduate assignment. Set to a song by Cuushe, it’s a hallucinatory epic that’s both starkly horrifying and bittersweet. In the years since, Yoko Kuno’s made a name for herself across several mediums — winning the New Face Award for her manga work at Japan Media Arts Festival, serving as a pinch hitter on Orange’s production of Land of the Lustrous and contributing a memorable sequence to Beastars. She returned this year with filmmaker Tao Tajima to produce another sequence scored to Cuushe’s music, Magic. Riffing on Airy Me's themes of bodily transformation and human ennui, it sets the action against real photographic landscapes. It's another haunting masterwork by one of anime’s most multitalented young artists and has been on repeat for me since it came up on my Twitter feed.  

  Image via FLAU

  Meanwhile, the Japanese vocalist Eve continues to commission new and excellent animated work based on his songs. This May saw the release of "How to Eat Life," a video by indie animator Mariyasu which repurposes Eve’s unique symbology of surly adolescents and freaky puppet monsters into a stylish and spooky carnival of carnivorism. It’s an excellent piece that stands tall among the work collected under Eve’s banner, many of which are stone-cold classics themselves. But "Promise," released at the end of this October, threatens to outdo them all. Directed by Ken Yamamoto and produced at Cloverworks, it plays as another greatest hits compilation of Eve’s works — broken promises, collapsing cityscapes, creatures powered by feeling that shake the earth with their footsteps. There’s a real visceral punch to it that beats out even its excellent predecessors. When the protagonist folds over himself in anguish, you feel it in your gut. When he steps deep into the water and the entire world around him is shredded into pieces, anyone who’s ever been a teenager knows exactly how that feels. When his friend reaches in and pulls him out of that water, that’s real joy rising like bubbles through your veins.

  Image via Eve

  Ken Yamamoto’s a bit more mainstream than Mariyasu — just last year he contributed some face-melting action sequences to Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia. But it says something to me that "Promise" — maybe his best work yet — was released as a music video rather than a new TV series. He’s not alone, either.  This August, the animator China (storyboarder for Encouragement of Climb’s third season) together with character designer Mooang (storyboarder for Sarazanmai) produced the music video "Sore wo Ai to Yobu dake." Like the reverse of Yamamoto’s "Promise," it’s the story not of a pair of teenage boys and their separation that devastates a cityscape — but of a pair of teenage girls who reach across time to recover the bond they shared in their high school days. A potent combination of FLCL-style faded nostalgia, careful attention to body language, and pure patented kids-falling-through-the-sky-while-frantically-reaching-for-each-other anime magic, it’s one of the best-animated sequences of this year. I’ve linked it to friends just to plead “Watch this thing!” And it ends in less than four minutes long.

  Image via Mafumafu

  I can’t help but think: Where is China and Moaang’s movie project? Where is Ken Yamamoto’s TV series? Why is it that Rie Matsumoto has produced two excellent music videos over the past two years that commemorate big franchises, but her rumored film project has yet to lift off? Perhaps the truth is that there isn’t room anymore in the TV anime industry for work like this. Many original projects seem to be tied to cellphone games or stage productions. Projects like Decadence are few and far between, and even those that exist play within a space already laid out by past successes. It’s not all bad, of course — Eizouken this year was a great example of an adaptation working in harmony with its source material. And we’ve seen studios like Orange employ weirder anime creators like Yoko Kuno or the stop-motion team dwarf to great effect in their projects. But perhaps animated music videos represent the future for artists like Matsumoto — a medium that pays well, rewards experimentation, and lets strong artists play around without having to dilute their style. A bite-sized format just outside of the soul-draining churn that defines the industry.

  Maybe this is fine, though. Short-form work is just as worthy of admiration as long-form work. I’d love feature-length projects from Ken Yamamoto or China, and I’d love for the world to see another Rie Matsumoto story told on a grand scale. But I can’t deny that Matsumoto rocks at putting together fantastic music videos and that I might even prefer the concise flow of "Gotcha!" to her TV series output. Either way, in this historically difficult year, I’m grateful to these folks for turning in career-best work and giving me hope for the future.

  Do you have a favorite animated music video? At the risk of getting off track, do you have a favorite anime music video? Do you still watch different fan edits of Hatsune Miku and wowaka's "Rolling Girl" on rotation, like I do? Let me know in the comments!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he isn't rewatching his favorite anime OPs over and over, he sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at: @wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[black-quadrant]

at long last, i give you chapter 2 of my demon AU! not as thrilling as chapter 1, unless you like a bunch of exposition! we’ll get to the juicy stuff soon enough. thanks for the interest and motivation to build out this AU!

He could have sworn he hadn’t consumed a drop of alcohol last night. Even a skeptic like him could assume spirits and real spirits would mix as well as oil and water, but ultimately he was staying sober for his friends in case they got themselves into some kind of actual real living trouble beyond their impulsivity to raise the dead, or... whatever.

So why did he feel completely hung the fuck over? Every muscle in his body ached, even ones he didn’t know he had, or hadn’t used since he was forced to play team sports in school (those were the days... not).

Nevertheless, he peeled himself out of bed, bracing himself for the morni-- er, afternoon. After... noon? With a soul-deep groan, Neku dragged himself into the shower, using that time to scavenge his memories of last night, picking up every mental fragment until he'd reached the end of the evening, where he crashed into bed. And the next conscious anything was a disturbingly vivid dream about being assaulted in said bed by what vaguely looked to be an arguably pretty boy packing a full set of gnashing teeth and ultraviolet whorls for eyes. The kind of nightmare vision appeal that made you hard for danger, the kind of unnerving midnight visitor that people wished would steal in and violate them in the comfort of their own room. And what followed... that made Neku stop everything, and crank the shower dial to blast himself with ice water.

He did not have time to indulge sordid fantasies. That was a hell of a dream though; he couldn’t recall the last time he’d dreamt so vividly. He’d have to... circle back around to that one later.

Right now he needed to rejoin society, and hopefully the flood of city stimuli will dilute and filter out this undercurrent of indistinct eeriness.

A cup of coffee was a good start. That, and an apology, both for bailing on his friends, and for, well, his friends. Taking to the streets, armed with his headphones (he never left home without them), he cranked up the volume until he could no longer hear Shibuya and meandered the all too familiar path to Wildkat Cafe.

He’s taking a gamble here at the shop being open, as it’s known for its proprietor’s inconsistent (putting it lightly) hours, but he’s in luck; it’s open, and Mr. H, upon spotting him, waved him in.

“’Ey, Phones!” He didn’t need hear him to read his lips and know he’s greeting him by his exasperating nickname. He used to think Mr. H simply forgot his name, but after countless attempts to try to replace it with his actual name, and even going without his headphones for a week to train him out of it, he’d resigned himself to his unchanging fate. But such was the nature of nicknames, right? You don’t always want them.

“Hey, Mr. H.” Draping said `phones’ around his neck, Neku strolled in, making his way to the counter where the barista was stationed, currently cleaning down the counter. “I, uh... wanted to say sorry for last night. I--”

Neku paused abruptly as a shadow fell over Hanekoma’s expression, smothering the air of congeniality he had about him. It’s the first time Neku’s ever seen him look so aggravated. It’s not until Hanekoma spoke that he realized he was staring past him.

“Does he know you’re stalking him, J?”

“You’re always ruining my fun, Mr. H.”

Neku spun toward the source of the undeniably snide tone, finding himself gawking at the face that starred in his tawdry dream last night.

“Hello, Neku.” He smiled with normal human teeth. A small comfort.

“... what the fuck?! Where did you come from? There was no one here a second ago.” Neku cast Hanekoma a wide-eyed glance full of disbelief. “...was there?”

Hanekoma barked out a laugh and shook his head.

“Who the fuck is this? Why do you know my name?” Something deeply, disturbingly intuitive Neku refused to acknowledge told him he knew the answer.

“I’m hurt. We met just last night.” It’s then that Neku noticed the petite violet horns seated atop that fluffy head. They couldn’t be bigger than two inches. It’s not like it’s out of place for the season, but it’s a bit too campy for Neku’s taste. Just as he was about to mock them, something brushed his arm.

A legitimate demon tail, complete with spade tip.

“Seriously? You’re wearing that out in public?” He swatted it away, eliciting a squeak of alarm from the little weirdo.

“Gentle. It’s not a costume prop.”

Neku backed himself up to the counter, again looking to the barista for help.

“You know damn well you’re not supposed to be in the RG.” He regarded said little weirdo with such familiarity that he was chastising him. RG? Too much is happening at once. Neku slammed a hand on the counter. "Hello?? I did not meet you, not last night or ever.”

The blonde simply smirked.

“Joshua... that ring a bell?”

The name, combined with his tone, struck him like lightning, and all at once the image flashed back into his mind. Horrorterror teeth, clawed hands, unmistakeable purple eyes--

“...holy shit.”

“There’s nothin’ holy ‘bout him--”

“Mr. H, would you like me to spill your secrets?”

“Which one?” The barista countered with a grin, and Neku literally and figuratively stepped out of their crossfire and snatched Joshua by a horn, cringing at discovering that it’s fixed to his skull. Joshua hissed, but didn’t move.

“Tell me now.”

“Don’t you remember? Your friends didn’t close the door. But don’t worry, I closed it behind me.” Neku released his grip and took a step back, finally understanding. It wasn’t a fever dream. Wasn’t even a normal dream. It had happened, it--

“You were in my bedroom--” Neku’s face went beet red. Joshua giggled knowingly.

“No, we didn’t do that. That was me feeding you some... prospects. Or perhaps it was a premonition?”

“You’re fucking gross.”

“Anyway,” Hanekoma interjected, “Joshua here is, I guess what you would call a demon.” Joshua huffed at being outed.

“This,” Neku gestured vaguely at the `boy’ “is not what I saw last night. Last night I would believe what I saw was indeed a demon. This is just a campy ruse.”

“Well, technically, you’re spot on.” Joshua affirmed, his sinuously long, slender tail swaying behind him, not unlike a cat’s. “Clearly you’re not a demon enthusiast or you’d know that we can take human shape, so that we can walk among you...” Joshua slunk over to the counter, tapping an empty mug in a silent entreaty for coffee. “Just like angels...right, Mr. H?” Hanekoma ignored him for the espresso machine.

“... okay... okay, okay, this has crossed over from fucking weird to goddamn cursed. I have so many questions I don’t even want the answers to, but I’ll summarize all of them: what do you want?”

Joshua, leaning casually against the counter, turned to Neku with a delighted grin.

“You. I like you. You’re a one in a million find in this city.” Behind the counter, brewing Joshua’s cup, Hanekoma scoffed. “You’re sensitive on an energetic level. I’d like us to spend some quality time... and I have been so bored. I was drawn to you because I can see you are bored, too.”

Neku opened his mouth to protest, but he instantly thought better of it. He’s not sure how Joshua could smell the utter ennui on him, but he’d chalk it up to Demonic Shit because he was getting a massive headache from information overload.

“As fun as hanging out with you and being tormented at night sounds, I’ll pass. I’ve got a life to live that I’m not going to piss away entertaining a demon masquerading as a human. The horns and tail are doing nothing for you human passing, by the way.”

“You want to send me back then, Neku? Do you even know how?” This motherfucker. Neku grit his teeth, biting back the urge to slap the pretty off his face.

“Besides, you won’t even see me during the day. I’ll make myself absent to the eyes.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I can hop between... dimensions. We’ll say dimensions. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“So you can stalk me some more?”

“Alright, boys, simmer down. `I’ll make your cup a’joes for the road, an’ you can go out an’ get acquainted.”

“You’re not off the hook.” Neku said sharply. “You’ve been suspiciously quiet about this the whole time. Obviously you two are acquainted. What is your relationship to this little cryptid?”

“I’ll tell ya all ‘bout it later, Phones. You have my word.” He pushed the cups forward. “On the house.” Hanekoma never offered free coffee. This did not bode well for Neku, who could tell he’d have to put up with a pet demon until he learned how to slam dunk him back to his own dimension.

“...fine. Are you gonna put away the costume props?”

“No one but you will see my very real extensions of myself. There’s my compromise.”

Neku rolled his eyes.

“You have to get the hell out of here if I go see my friends. I am not explaining you. That’s my compromise.”

“Brr... so cold.” Joshua cozied up to Neku’s side, clearly intent on testing his boundaries (and his wrath). “Take me out to lunch, and I will tell you anything you want to know.”

“I can’t believe this...”

Those purple eyes, for a split second, flare with the glow of last night.

“Oh, Neku... you will. You will.”

[sasorikigai]

❝You are my sadness and my hope, but mostly you’re my love.❞ ( @Hanzo, any verse of your choosing )

WandaVision Quotes || @sonxflight || accepting 

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Everything has its designated time; a time in life when things mean the most. The time when things were pretty, the time when things were desired, the time when it all was beautiful, and the time that is gone and too long away. When everything comes back, crying, meaning, profound; much outside Hanzo Hasashi’s happy place. But now he no longer aches anymore, despite numerous humiliating failures and the throes of unbearable pain and self-condemnation that had plunged the hanyo in the throes of hara-kiri by disembowelment. 

How Ryou Sakai crashed into his life akin to a storm, tearing the half-demon away from almost everything that defined him. Succumbing deeply to ennui, despair and existential pain next to his other sources of power right by the old trauma and new bones; the infernal, magmatic flame that would destroy for the sake of his own searing, torturous pain. How the ōkami uprooted him from where there was no comfort and warmth, but damnation and agony. For he would suffocate on his own saltwater waterfalls, as stinging blaze of his own hellfire would render him convulsing and quivering against the quagmire earth, as jaw-clenching and muscle-tightening pain would siphon the demonic essence, in order for it to be utilized against the humanity at large. 

And he would be forced to be left abandoned in the peril of solitude; addictive in the way how peaceful and calm it is, even as he still sputtered crimson streams as his motionless limbs would only be sprawled beneath the weakened ebb and flow of his heart, a candlelight amidst the typhoon. He would simply throw his conscious up and let his mind and soul dance to the rhythm of his heart, listen to the music that is there desperately yearning to be discovered. The status quo of his being reflecting the literal and metaphorical hopelessness as he would merely become a mangled maceration of a creature at the gate of time, vindictive and grim, as his shallow breathing would become the mournful susurration that would shiver in eradicated self-existence. 

The wind blows through the multitudes of scar tissues; above chiseled definition of Hanzo’s musculature lays latticeworks and topographical impressions of battle-etched and self-inflicted blemishes, even more made visible beneath the shining radiance of the moonlight. Calmness blankets his mind, as he takes in the serene vision that surrounds him. This may be his baptismal tranquility, the dream-reality of his spring. As the silvery lusciousness of the ōkami’s fur cradles and blankets him whole, the cadence of strong thrumming heartbeat beneath him becoming a song hitting a different chord in his heart. Even when life becomes heavy and he finds himself still stuck in the herculean burden of overcoming the voice of emptiness which tempts and lures him, against the desire to fall, Hanzo Hasashi defends himself with gritted stubbornness and impassioned will and fervor for tomorrow. 

“Without it, it would have been exceptionally difficult to muster all my strength on the days it would be easier to run than face. Love reminds myself the motivation is for this cycle to end with me. And you - you grant me your wisdom as I navigate these strange seas of the world. For you give me valid reasons to why I now understand the humanity’s heart, to know to move in this world with compassion, and to know when to give up and let go.” Without spilled pomegranate or entrails, by cleaved like event horizon of stars set on its doomed fate, Ryou Sakai happens to evoke the waters, the well of words never manifested, as to stir the magmatic conflagration of his dwelling destructive fire to be mitigated to magnificent, magnanimous lantern that would guide and direct. 

“Dreams are sweet, but they cannot sustain. It’s not only the mortals who are able to fully feel the wonder of magic, and even amidst the perpetual pain, I am able to believe the zealous power of love. and I will always let out love to become the healing salve against my wounded heart.” 

Hanzo Hasashi’s heart’s desire is carried upon the gentle coaxing of Ryou’s head, as his ardent kiss folds over and over as the ebb and flow of his heart agglomerates, marshaling his power to let his brutal, candor honesty known. ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || 

[unlownmaiden]

As we are all still in this quarantine, decided to share this one shot I wrote last 2018 which was inspired by a pic I saw on deviantart by

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ tihany...

As it was inspired, the character names are different, but I still ship these two even though the other died and it will never happen, only in fanfiction will they be together ヾ (✿＞﹏ ⊙〃)ノ

Enjoy and leave reactions, comments for improvements...thank you Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ

The No Life King

Inspired by this pic👇 by tihany

Demon and Maria

Deliverance

By tihany.devianart.com

Crawling on the dirt, she made her way into a nearby cave. With her body battered and legs thrashed, she can feel her life slowly fading away. At least let me die somewhere comfortable . She thought as she continued crawling despite the pain and numbness she felt

'What do we have here.' A voice suddenly echoed inside. A little rabbit fell down the hole. The voice said. You fell deep, to sustain such injuries little girl.

With her voice crackling, she slowly looked up ahead. A body was chained to the wall. It was a man with long hair. He was looking at her with evil eyes. Too sinister for someone like her. Why are you...chained? It was the first thing that popped in her mind to ask.

Looking at her in astonishment then amusement, the man started laughing. His voice was evil in itself. Pouring inside the cave, like waves of coldness and ennui. Little girl, you're the first one to amuse me in over a century. He said, eyes still fixated on her battered form.

I'm glad I can amuse someone before my impending death. She whispered before looking up at him again with a grateful smile. At least I was able to be of service. Forcing herself, she crawled closer until she was at his foot. She pulled herself up, using him as leverage. I'll help you get out of those chains. A century is too long to be cooped up in darkness. She smiled again at him. Pulling out her hair pin, she started picking the lock at his left hand, then the right. Both shackles clanged on the cold ground as they fell, the only sound aside from her ragged breathing.

What an interesting notion to say. He told her as she fell on her knees. How do you know I won't end your life as soon as I'm released from these chains? He threatened.

As she continued to pick on the remaining locks, she said in reply. I'll be gone soon. There is no reason for me to fear death as it is already by my side.

As soon as the man was free, she collapsed, losing all strength in her small body. Before her head hit the ground, he was crouching and held her before it hits the ground completely. Looking at the little girl in his arms, he began to feel curious as to how she came to be in this state. Looking at her garments, he deduced that she's from an aristocratic family. Though bloodied, her face would bloom to be a beauty in a few years. He considered the pros and cons of helping her, in the end, his curiosity won after all.

Little girl, tell me your name. He asked, holding her small frame.

I'll be dying anyway, what use is keeping my identity from anyone? She said to herself as she got a glimpse of his face. It was the most beautiful face she had ever seen. It even tops her beloved brother's who was considered to be the most handsome in the continent.

My name is Iris Fleur Harvester of the House Flora. She voiced before she spit-up blood due to her internal injuries.

Well then Iris Fleur Harvester of the House Flora, I am Diablo Valeria of the fallen kingdom of Valeria. The last of my kind. My people call me the No life King. I bind myself to you as my other half. He declared before licking her bloodied lips and biting his own to bleed, before lowering them to hers. She was too weak to even struggle and digest the meaning of his declaration before she felt her consciousness fade. Before she completely fell into oblivion, she heard him say. With this, you are bound to me and I to you, the bearer of my heart and soul.

[goodvibesatpeace]

The 30 Day Challenge Each Zodiac Sign Needs To Take In Order To Live Beautifully

Aries: Watch a movie each day challenge

Netflix is great, but how about expanding your knowledge and inspiration for the next 30 days with a movie marathon? A friend of mine took this challenge while he was studying to become an actor and spent a couple minutes each morning reviewing the film he watched the night before.

This proved an excellent exercise to access not only great art, but also to nurture his curiosity, to enhance his thinking and to learn amazing pick-up lines (my point exactly).

Make a list of the films you’ve always wanted to watch and never had the chance to, subscribe to local cinemas to stay informed about premieres or offer to host some movie nights at your place for your friends and their cinema aficionado acquaintances. Soon enough, you’ll have a complete new agenda to look up to!

Taurus: Living without social media challenge

This social media thing has invaded your life, hasn’t it, Taurus? You spend your minutes before falling asleep with your phone rather than with your SO, endlessly scrolling newsfeeds and hopelessly spying on your current Instagram obsessions. Before superficially sighing again and letting your ennui grow stronger than your sense of humour, consider cutting your own access to social channels for one month. Wait, what, you work there? That doesn’t mean you can’t still do it. Create a separate Facebook profile (without adding ANY friends) if you need one for your work, and deactivate your main profile instead. Oh, I know, you think you’re gonna die without your newsfeed tabloid each day, but whenever you postpone going to the toilet in the morning because you want some extra time spying your ex on Facebook, remember your bladder is not an infinite well. Other than that, you’ll be surprised how much spare time you will have access to. You might even want to pass this to your social media obsessed friend(s) next time their lunch gets cold because they HAD to Instagram it.

Gemini: Dance class challenge

This is a good time to work on your feminine/masculine balance and what better way to do so other than dancing your demons away while learning to actually synch with a partner? Takes two to tango, Gemini, and even if you do it just for you to learn to move your hips like Shakira, you can bet this kind of energy will make peace between your conflicted sides.

Cancer: Slow cooking challenge

If your diet’s been more vodka on the rocks and preheated meals this winter, Cancer, you might consider breaking up with your fast foodie knack and get yourself prepared a real, delicious and healthy snack. Even if you’ll find it boring and painstaking in the first week to actually move your ass to the market, analyze recipes and ingredients, spend time figuring how to mix organic avocados with goat cheese and chutney, doing so will make room for creativity in the kitchen. Plus, your body will thank you for that. From all its pores.

Leo: Learning a new skill challenge

It only takes 20 hours to become pretty good at something new. That means 45 minutes each day for a month, and a realistic plan to get you closer to your next dream job, fruition of a hobby or take-off of a business you’ve been long musing to kickstart. You might be surprised how fast your mind wraps itself around this new outlook and you’ll feel so much confident when you’ve touched first base with something you’ve always wanted to do but never considered yourself competent enough to actually do it. Now it’s the time!

Virgo: Deep cleansing challenge

Rest, eat, meditate, repeat. If you’ve been struggling with a difficult project, ran the mile to burnout at work or postponed washing your hair for a whole week (OR, even worse, slept in your make-up because you once read Kim Kardashian gets away with that – which she totally doesn’t, BTW), it’s high time to put a hold on your FOMO and workaholic inside and get a good and completely deserved rest. This means 9 hours of sleep each night, drinking lemon water each morning on an empty stomach, comforting your body with Swedish massage and eating healthy and vitamin reach meals three times a day, no exception. You might also want to swipe alcohol and caffeine while you’re at it, and treat your body and mind the well deserved rest it needs.

Libra: Vippassana meditation challenge

For someone who finds it hard to sit down with their own issues and often forgets to shush and listen to others, a no-talking yoga camp with long meditation classes in the morning and spiritual engaging activities throughout the day may be a winning challenge to finally connect with your deepest desires.

Scorpio: Arts and crafts challenge

The creative adult is the child who survived. If you’ve been feeling disconnected from your heart’s wishes and feel like your anxiety is the only thing standing between you and that big dream of yours, this is a good time to actively listen to your inner child, inner artist, inner voice, and give them some credit. Take a painting class, start scribbling your thoughts into poems, play with clay or take a graphic design course. Whenever I tell myself I can’t do anything artistic because I lack the skill, I think of my friend who channelled her creative energy into 38 paintings over the course of 30 days (!) after she fell in love. And even if you’re not in love, you might end up learning an important lesson about what you really love in life.

Sagittarius: Yoga mat challenge

Your body is a wonderland of sensations, Sag, and you need to work on your flexibility, especially if you want things to get wilder in the bedroom. Your epicurean spirit may find great comfort in taking a relaxing yoga class, while your body will thank you for releasing the blocked energies in your chakras. Take a deep breath and stick to it for one month, even if it seems pointless in the beginning, you will be surprised by your Jagger moves after this!

Capricorn: Be a tourist in your own city challenge

I know, we all love to travel and we get this fantastic high when we’re mingling with new people in different cultures. Then, back home, we find ourselves numbed and bored by the lacklustre of the city we inhabit, often forgetting the myriad of possibilities and attractions that make it so catchy for tourists each season after all. Take some time to sit with your mood while revisiting all the shows, galleries, museums and free activities your city has to offer. Rent a bike and explore the lesser known areas of your city. Book a nice dinner to a venue you’ve never stepped into before. Wear those beautiful clothes that you only sport on holidays (because you feel it’s tacky to dress nice for no occasion) and plan some getaways to local events with your close friends. You will feel tired but extremely happy and thankful for the energy boost your social life and your mind will get from this.

Aquarius: Surf camp challenge

Your body craves interactive sports that help you tone that beach body and boost your adrenaline in the same time. Take a month to relax and refresh your system while learning to surf with a hot instructor in a breezy resort. Lena Dunham just took one on the premiere episode of GIRLS’ season 6 and it made up for some good old soul searching too. Don’t forget to SPF!

Pisces: Diary of dreams challenge

This is a fantastic way to connect to your subconscious and learn decoding the messages it sends to you while you’re resting between the sheets. If you’ve been having nightmares, or if you’re simply curious how your dream world relates to events in your waking life, you might start a dream journal. Get yourself a beautiful notebook and begin collecting your dreams each morning before breakfast, trying to be as explicit and detailed as possible. Reflect on the notes you made at the end of each week and soon you will be able to deconstruct your subconscious mind and connect in surprising ways to the aspects of your life that need improvement.

[dcbicki]

S O M E W H E R E   I N   T H E   W I N T E R   W O O D S | Chapter Nine

Red Riding Hood AU: Lost on her way to her grandmother’s cabin in the winter woods after running away from home, beautiful young Sansa thinks she’s run into trouble when she crosses a white wolf in the forest. Instead of harming her, the animal guides her to his master, a handsome warrior named Jon who lives in solitude and clothes himself in black.

After much persuasion, he begrudgingly agrees to take her to her granny’s, so long as she never bother him again and promises to keep the local townspeople from hunting after his wolf. But snows fall heavily on the mountains as days go by and evil lurks behind frozen trees, making this no easy feat.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

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By the time she wakes, the fire has put itself out, all embers and dust. The room is filled with a heavy smell of smoke, the darkness of the night sky peering in through the window.

She doesn't know how they long they slept for, doesn't want to think of the advantage Ramsay could now have on them. What if he's close, nearby? What if he's waiting?

It's a dreadful thought, terrifying really - one she feels the chill of throughout her whole body, shivers up her arms as she pulls the cloak tighter. Jon is warmer now, thankfully more so than he had been before. His skin is rosier, still pale, but at least his complexion has returned back to its usual shade of snow white.

His backside is bare though, and she assumes he's tossed and turned in his sleep because he's on his side, one arm beneath his head, the other slung out as though to reach for her, cradle her.

Sansa sits then, clutching the makeshift blanket, curling her legs up beneath her. Her body is sore, tired, but not as plainly weak as it had been before. She would like to think she feels different, changed; but that would be a lie.

She is no different, not really, the only change being that she has now felt the true touch of a man, felt the promise of love and devotion. He could be lying, though. He could have cheated her, played another round of their game just once more, without her knowledge.

She wants to trust him, likes to think that she does. But he's a loner, and lonely, and perhaps she has given in too easily. Perhaps she has just ruined herself, soiled her name and body and soul because she wanted him.

She cannot let him have her again, this much she knows. She'd gotten what she wanted, what she felt she needed, and she guesses his cries had been those of relief, answered longing, too. Perhaps they played each other, after all.

Oh, well. If he leaves now, she will have to make peace with that fact.

She doesn't know why she doubts him, doubts his loyalty and word, but maybe it's the softer medicine to swallow, the one that won't scrape at her throat or burn her insides inside-out.

Maybe this way she won't be left hurting, alone.

"Are you going to keep staring at my backside all day?"

She snaps her attention back to Jon's face then, eyes trailing over the arch of his lower back, the hard muscles of his shoulders.

"Sorry." Her face flushes, much to her own discontent. Sansa curls her lips, one corner turning upward, "It's such a pretty bottom." She tilts her head, smiles.

She teases him, pokes at his nose with one finger, distracts herself before she can ponder anything more.

Jon can only frown, but there's the smallest chuckle that escapes past his lips anyway, "Thank you." It's almost a question.

"We have to leave soon."

"Where will we go?"

"Home."

She does not know where he means, which home he could be referring to. Her own, or his? The home she knows, has grown up in with her family? Or the one she would like to make for herself by his side, the one she would now like to call her own?

"Wouldn't it be safer to stay here?" It's stupid, she knows.

She lies back down at that, perched up on her elbow, cloak drawn up to cover her breasts, hair askew. Her eyes close, his hand pulling her closer, bringing her into his front, "I can't imagine anybody discovering us here."

"If your intended hasn't already... One day, somebody will." Jon informs her, "Your brother, your father. We aren't in the unknown, little wolf."

He isn't wrong, but she would still rather like to believe this daydream could become her reality. She would like to believe they could stay here, live here, die here of their own will, of old age.

"I want to go home."

She nods, flicks ice blue eyes open to stare him down, challenge him as though he has opposed her. He complies, and she isn't surprised in the slightest. Perhaps he does just want to guarantee her safety. Perhaps she never misjudged him. Perhaps the misjudgement had just been her own excuse, an answer to her woes.

"You'll make it home."

And I will go home, and I will be left just as I was before. Only I will be the girl unwed, bedded, wrecked. I will be the village harlot. I will be the wreckage, and you the flood.

"Ramsay will still want me."

He always has, probably always will. He won't care if she is willingly scathed, used. He will just make her his own anyhow. He will always want those who disobey him, oppose him; whether it be their head served on a platter or their freedom ripped from beneath them.

"And you will still refuse him."

"I can't imagine a time I won't loathe him." She tells him, lets him cup her chin, tilt her head, run his thumb along her bottom lip, "I can't imagine wanting him when I've had you."

"Sansa."

She makes to roll over him then, tossing one leg over his waist, hands on his abdomen, low. "Yes?" It's foolish. She shouldn't. She can't.

"Stop."

She should.

"Why?" She pinches the taunt skin of his belly, carefully avoiding his modest wounds, "Give me one reason."

"Because we don't have time."

"What if we never have time again?" She doesn't want to whine, to beg. But she liked it, and loved him, and would eagerly go for more even if what it means is still unclear to her.

He sits then, hands firmly on her waist, watching her slide down his lap until she rests back on her calves. "Then I guess our story is to be left without an ending."

There will always be an ending, be it wonderful or tragic, or a bittersweet combination of the two. There will be always be an ending, whether we choose it or not.

"You do riddle a lot." She points out, soft brows knitting, her face a pretty picture of ennui. "You're a riddler. A nice yet harsh riddler."

It isn't a jab, nor a jest.

"Would you like me to speak clearly?" He asks, runs one hand up her thigh as she bends her knee with a nod of her head, brings him closer, forces him to lean into her. "I would like to have you."

"Properly?"

Perhaps she doubted him for no reason at all.

"Any and every which way possible."

"Naked?" She smiles, grabs his hands, flips his palms over as she goes to stand, linking her fingers through his own, "In the flesh? All day?"

"If only the Gods were so generous." He kisses the crook of her elbow, rises onto his knees when she stands proudly, all tussled long hair and crimson cape. "If only I were so deserving."

"I believe this venture of ours has made you worthy of me." Sansa offers, cannot resist grabbing the sides of his face, pulling him up, forcing him to stand. He's scolding and cold at once - his face hot, his arms near freezing. "I believe I should myself lucky to have been saved by you."

"I haven't saved you, Sansa." He informs her with a dip of his brows, brooding and black, "I only want to protect you."

"Well, I don't need your protection." She swallows a breath, lets his hands fall, "I only ask for your word that you will take me home."

Perhaps she has misjudged her own feelings, played herself.

"I promised, didn't I?"

She nods, spins around until her back is turned. "Yes."

She leaves him to retrieve her clothes from the floor in the other room, slipping her dresses and garments over her head, pulling her socks and pants up. The bust of her dress is torn though, so she has to add one of her granny's simple slips beneath it.

"Are you mad?" He is dressing, too; this boy with the black hair and the white skin, this man with the voice of a fallen angel, the spirit of a demon ascended from below.

"No." She stuffs one leg in her boot, copies with the other, huffs, "I am... eager to leave this all behind."

Once I return home, I will ask Father for the right to marry you, love you. Once you return me home, you will ask Father for the right to marry me, love me. Once we return home, we will never leave.

"Eager to leave me already?"

"Eager to pretend I can."

Jon does not reply, but he helps her clothe, already having collected himself and his belongings.

They steal old food from the kitchen before they leave, and she shoves rolls of hard baked bread in her basket. It would be easier if she left it, went without. But if she has made it this far, then surely she can make it home with her favourite pannier.

They leave when the sun is rising, an amber glow on the pastel sky. The wind blusters, cuts, and she is grateful for her gloves, for her layers upon layers of dress.

She wants to think Jon has recovered, has regained his strength. But, in truth, she doubts he is well, that he is healed. He was wounded, and she had only just about patched over his fresh scars. How could he be healthy so soon?

"We should be home by morning."

A day's trek if they do not delay, stop. A day's trek and she will be returned, altered just in the slightest.

It will all have been for nothing, she thinks, pauses when she turns to sneak a look at Jon.

She wants him, wants him, wants to live with him. She would like to believe he wants the same things she does, wants to share her company for the rest of his life, too.

But he is a loner, and he is lonely, and happy that way. It would seem that way, at least.

'How could I leave you when I am in love with you?'

Perhaps he does share her dream, after all.

Perhaps she should stop doubting him, let him have her, protect her.

Perhaps she should believe him to be her best chance.

-

It's only when she's reaching into the basket for something to eat that she ponders Ghost's absence. The wolf has not been seen for some hours now, half a day at the very least. They've been gone for hours, too, now, walking miles to find their way back.

Jon says Ghost is fine, probably off hunting or chasing deer. He doesn't doubt his pet's whereabouts for one moment, doesn't think to question his absence.

But Sansa is not so easily settled. "What if he was caught?"

One wolf is stronger than one hound, but it is weaker than several. One wolf is stronger than one man, but it is weaker than one wielding a crossbow.

"He'll come back soon."

As he says this, there's a crunching, a snap, of some twigs behind them. It's quick, and the sound is so quiet that Sansa wonders how she ever even heard it at all.

She half-expects Ghost to come pandering right out of the woods, right on queue, in sync with his master's words. She half-expects a fox, a deer, a hound to come running out of the bushes.

None of this happens, though.

Nothing happens until several moments later, when she hears shouting and a loud bang.

Jon's hand wraps around her wrist, all icy leather and numb knuckles, before she can turn to face the scene, discover the source of those sounds. He pulls her forward, drags her to keep up with his own pace.

"Keep your mouth shut."

It's a command, an order, and only an utter fool would disobey.

It isn't Ghost that trails behind them, nor is it a fox or a deer.

There is one man - no, two men - and one dog at their heels. Dressed in black, with crimson red crosses adorning the sleeves of their tunics; the sign of the enemy.

Sansa can only catch a single fleeting look at them, from over her shoulder, through the curtain of her hair.

The redness of her cape had caught their attention, she assumes. It is so bright, so imposing that it has to have been their giveaway. She should have changed into something else, discarded it in favour of something darker, colder, discreet.

Only a fool would sport the colour of death as they were being hunted. Only a fool would think to bring food and wine, cloth and needles. Only a fool would think to prioritise hunger over true survival, thirst over life. Only a fool would make the decisions she has made.

She is nothing but a foolish young woman, a stupid little girl. She is anything but strong, anything but wise. She is stupid, stupid and small. There is nothing grown about her.

How could she have thought herself matured when, in truth, she has been nothing but spoilt, helped? How could she think herself independent when she has never fended for herself, always relief upon a man, and a stranger one at that, to save her, protect her? How dare she call herself a woman when she is nothing but a scared little girl with nothing to lose and everything to give?

How dare she expect Jon to save her when she has never proven that she would do the same for him?

She knows the men are still following, still at their heels, still waiting for their inevitable fall.

They have swords, undoubtedly, and she knows they won't harm her (too much) because Ramsay wants her. And Ramsay will only harm her when he has her, in spirit and in law.

Perhaps she could prove herself, after all.

"Jon."

The man doesn't seem to pay her much mind, save for the hand clutching so tightly onto her arm, the occasional look back to make sure she is still there. The snow crunches with every step he takes, his steps louder than hers, the heaviness of his body tugging her along with only mild effort.

"Jon, stop."

"What?" He bites, and his tone is not nice, sweet. It isn't the cold, either.

"Stop."

She pulls at his hold, forces him to loosen his grip. Her arm drops, and she immediately balls her fist at the loss, at the realisation of what she is doing.

He's facing her directly, his body leant in a way that tells her which direction he is set, prepared to run in. But she is stopped- completely, resolute.

"Go." She nods once, twice, barely blinks before repeating twice more, "Go."

She does not have to drag him into this. She does not have to put him in harm's way any longer. She can help him now, she can save him now.

"Jon!"

"You're insane."

She can hear shouting, laughing, and the heavy footprints of the hounds being left in the thick snow that fell overnight. The blueing flakes still falling down on them are her one solace, make this picture prettier than it is.

"Perhaps."

She wants to grab at him, hold onto him, fall into his arms and close her eyes until death comes to collect her.

She wants to touch him, kiss him, have him hold her for just one second so she can pretend this isn't happening.

"He won't hurt me."

Not right away. Not now. Not here. Not yet.

"You're stupid." He tells her, as though she doesn't already know this, as though she is so slow that she's still unaware of her own idiocy.

He grabs her then, one arm wrapping around her waist before she can even reply, one hand pressing firmly into the low of her back to push, shove her forward. She would refuse, but he's stronger, and he is determined. He's more determined to keep her alive than she is ready to die for his cause.

"Run."

Maybe he doesn't want saving, after all. Maybe he doesn't want protecting.

Jon does not let go of her, forever keeping one part of himself touching one part of herself, forever making sure she is still there, at his side, no more than a foot away from him.

"He will kill you."

"I made my peace with death long ago, Sansa. Long before you came along."

He slows, forces her to slow, catches her when she almost falls, tripping over a overgrown tree branch. Her boots have become worn, lightly shredding at the front when she has ran, tried to run, failed to keep up.

There is only so long they can hide here, crouched and huddled behind a thick oak tree, letting few fallen leaves float in the breeze until they land on the ground below them, shrivelling up in the cold air, coated in white dust.

There is only so long they can stay like this.

"Run south. Only south."

He's close to her, his breath so heavy and strong on her face, the curled hairs dangling over his forehead tickling her own skin. She wants to curl them, run her fingers through them. Terribly.

"To your cabin?" She will run, and hide, but only if he promises to join her.

"To your home."

The village is south, and his cabin is east. If only he would let her-

There's a growl, louder than that of a hound, not too far in the distance, and Sansa wills herself to believe that Ghost has returned to lend his master a hand, hopes that the weak howl had been that of a dying bastardly dog.

Jon pulls at the hood of her cloak then, drawing the strings tighter. He wraps a thick, burnt piece of leather she had plucked from her Granny's around her wrist, ties it to the basket of ale and wool.

"South."

She knows he surely cannot handle two of Ramsay's men. It isn't possible. He is weaker still, still battered and bruised and partially broken. But if he has Ghost, and if Ghost has already taken care of the hounds, then-

"Yes."

She wants to kiss him, wants to feel the touch of his lips one more time, one last time. But it would take too long, for she would fall and want to continue falling until she hit the surface of the the bottom of his heart.

If he has Ghost, he will be fine. And she can run. She can run, and hide, and she will freeze if she has to. She will go home, and she will tell someone, anyone, of what has happened. And they'll lead a party, and they'll help Jon, and she will-

"Go."

She hurries away then, smoothing a hand down his face once more, almost cradling his jaw like that of an innocent child. She wouldn't have let go if it weren't for the hand he bats her away with, with the hand that softly grabs her wrist and pushes, urges her to flee.

There is nothing innocent about him, though one may be fooled by his handsomely pretty features. One would be forgiven for thinking him unscathed, whole. One would be forgiven for thinking him a hero.

It hurts, to walk away, to run when she knows he is facing impending death.

Something inside of her aches at the thought, at the idea of Jon sacrificing his own freedom to guarantee her own.

He never asked to be her saviour, never sought after being her protector.

He could have denied her, refused her request and booted her from his cabin. But he is kinder than he lets on - or tries to pretend he can, at least - and he is softer than many other men she could have happened upon.

He never asked to be her hero, her guardian. He only wanted his peace, his freedom and isolation from the community.

And so, if he happens to survive, she will sacrifice her own desires, wants. She will grant him solitude, silent amnesty. She will demand that the villagers cease all hunting of he and his wolf. She will demand that the villagers leave him be. She will demand that they leave Ghost be.

If he survives, she will force herself to abandon him, if that is still what he truly wants, within his heart of hearts. She will forget him, will herself to pretend he is nothing more than a dream.

"Gods."

Her breath is heavy, panting, for she is not sure of how long she has been running, fleeing the hilltop.

There had been echoes of fighting men behind her at first, when she had left Jon alone at the tree. She had heard them sparring, shouting, coming to blows via swords and fists.

But she hadn't heard Ghost there, hadn't heard the direwolf growl, tearing a man from limb to limb.

That was some time ago though. The sky has darkened, the snowfall is heavier now, all thick flakes, refusing to melt on her tongue or hand. She is sure her feet are near purple, halfway frozen by now. But the adrenaline as well as her outright refusal to stop running, or rather hurrying, has stopped her from feeling the pain of the blistering cold.

Her throat is dry now, her knees boney and weakening. She looks over her shoulder every other moment or so, counts to fifty between peeks.

She is only a few miles or so from the village, surely. The basket on her arm is still swinging, the thick strap digging into her arm, most likely leaving its mark in her flesh.

She wants to stop, wants to drink, to rest. But there is no time for that, and she is almost-

"Ah, my love."

Her skin turns to ice then, shivers of sheer terror running up her arms and down her legs, encasing her entire body is a coat of fright.

"I've been looking for you."

If she could scream, she would. If only her voice would let her, if only her throat were clearer. If she could wail, she would do so until he slit her throat.

His eyes are darker than they had been when she last faced him, his hair sprinkled with snowflakes. His face is pale, but he bears more colour than she thinks Jon ever has. His cheekbones are prominent, his stance well rehearsed and his arms stretched behind his back, hands no doubt clasped, plotting.

"Aren't you going to greet me?" Ramsay smirks, takes one step closer, makes the distant village seem even farther away, impossible to reach.

If she ran, she could...

"Sansa."

"How did you find me?"

She would have thought him further north, buried deep in the woods looking for her. She would have thought him to be with his men, with his foot soldiers, his watchful aides. She would have thought him wiser than this, smarter.

Perhaps she misjudged his genius.

"It wasn't hard." He raises a brow, eyes her as though they are only catching up, trading news, "In fact, if it hadn't been for that friend of yours, we never would have found you."

She daren't speak his name, give him away. If Ramsay knows nothing of him, really, then she will not share. Jon, she thinks, breathing out.m

Ramsay lowers his head, tilts it down with a calculating smile she has never had the displeasure of seeing. He shrugs, keeping his shoulders raised, "His precious wolf was easy enough to hunt down."

Ghost.

Sansa's eyes close, foolishly, and she clutches onto the basket in her hands, knuckles turning an ivory white under her gloves. Her teeth grit, her lips drawn thin.

Gods, what have they done to him?

"Are you not happy to see me, Sansa?" He asks, and she can hear him move closer, hear his footprints carve into the thick blanket of snow, leaving his mark.

She doesn't reply, instead opening her eyes to star down at the ground, letting the redness of her cape shelter her face. She takes a deep breath, holds it in when his hand reaches for her face, bare and frozen.

Jon.

Ghost.

"Your family misses you terribly, my love." He tells her, strokes his index finger down her cheekbone to her jawline, cups her face in one hand.

She goes to turn her head, face the clearing to her right, but he tightens his grip, holds her steady. She could shove him, force him down. He has no weapon, that she can see. He has no protection, that she can see.

"I imagine they do."

His smile widens at her reply, finally, "As do I."

He runs the pad of his thumb over her mouth, smooth, pulls her lower lip out between his fingers. He tugs, watches her face flush, turn numb.

"Pretty little mouth." Ramsay says, focusing solely on her lips, "I do wonder what you taste like."

Jon.

"He isn't coming," He informs her then, taking in her expression, "Your little wolf friend. My man have taken care of him."

"How do you know?"

"Because they always take care of my business." His hand slips from her face, and he plucks a finger into the basket on her arm, "Have you brought me baked goods, my love?" It's sickening, that name, his face. "Come, we can enjoy them once we are home."

He goes to pull at her arm then, wrapping his palm around her elbow. It isn't soft, gentle, not is it as rough she expects.

Only hours ago, she agreed to this, resigned herself to submit to him. Only hours ago, she had lead herself to believe that perhaps this was her only hope.

But, now, in his presence, alone... She would rather slit her wrists and bleed out onto freshly fallen snow than go anywhere with him. She would rather die than become his toy, his trophy. She would rather die than let him win without even some semblance of defeat, too.

"Let go of me."

His eyes roll, and she can tell he grows impatient every time she pulls her arm back, stands her ground.

The howling of the trees fills the silence he leaves, the crunching of snow behind him, careful and calm, escaping him.

"You're too weak to fight me, Sansa." He argues, digs his fingers into her arm, but she only feels half the sensation due to her layers of dress. Her sleeves are long, thick.

He presses harder then, as though he knows she feels nothing. "Look at you, you're shivering cold. You must be sick." It would be caring were he not so naturally cruel. "You can't possible think you can refuse me, like this."

"Let go of my arm."

"Sansa," He sighs, leans into her but lets go of her, "You are going to be my wife. Let me take care of you."

"As you took care of Jeyne?"

"That girl has a mind of her own." He holds his hands up, unabashedly, "Nobody can help someone who creates such elaborate stories."

"She never created anything." Her brows knit, and she can feel her throat tightening, her eyes tiring, so she blinks, fights back against the fatigue, "You set your dogs loose after her."

"But it happened so long ago now, Sansa." He adds, "Let us go home, and we can clear up all of this mess."

Sansa shrugs his hand off when he reaches for her again, trying to touch her shoulder. His face changes at that, turns from annoyance to anger, and she can tell his impatience is reaching boiling level.

"I'm not going with you." She informs him, gazes off behind him, watches as white fur masquerades as snow. Her lip twitches, her mouth curling upward just the slightest, "I'm never going anywhere with you."

"Fine then." He grunts, takes two steps back, resumes his position with his hands behind his back. "If you want to stay here, and wait for my men to find you, well then have your way. I'm sure they will be more than satisfied to teach you some obedience. They're lonely men, Sansa. They haven't felt the touch of a woman in so long."

He smiles, wicked, "Though I'm sure you must have learnt a thing or two on your travels. Maybe you could show them what your dead little hunter friend taught you. You do have a lovely mouth; would be a shame to let it go to waste, don't you think?"

Refusing to give in to his comments, she retains her arms by her sides, keeps ice blue eyes focused on the frozen field behind him. The rosebushes are covered in snow ash, the pink flowers now as pastel as her flushed complexion. But the snow, the snow is as white as Ghost's fur, and the redness of his eyes cannot go unnoticed.

His eyes match her cloak, the biting colour of death contrasting against the purity of Ramsay's unknown backdrop.

If only he knew...

"If I'm going to die, let it happen while there is still some of me left."

You can have my body, but not my soul. You will never have me.

Ghost does not growl, does not make a sound, and his prints are lighter than Sansa has ever heard them. He is discreet, calm, a true ghost remaining out of sight, lingering.

But she sees him, and she knows that the wolf can sense her fear, her fright. He approaches on slow paws, head lowered.

If only Ramsay knew...

"Come, now. There is nothing here for you." The man reasons, waves a hand around with the slightest of laughs, disbelieving, "You can't run, you can't go back to that cabin. He isn't there, Sansa. He's gone. You have no out. You have no chance."

"I have one."

"Oh, and what is that?" He frowns, lets his truest colours show, his face the picture of evil itself, "Are you going to throw a snowball at me? Are you going to shoo me away with the flick of your little basket? You're stupid. You're just like your grandmother. She was weak, too. Couldn't fend me off." He gloats, "You're stupid, and you're alone, and you are helpless. You're nothing."

"Perhaps I am nothing," she stares at him, refuses to admit defeat, refuses to turn over her last card, "but then I still have my Ghost."

"Your ghost."

He chuckles, the kind of laugh that makes her skin crawl, makes every inch of her skin set itself aflame to burn all memory of his touch.

She watches the ever-present animal behind him, wonders how and when he first appeared, tracked her own. Maybe he had followed her, maybe he had abandoned Jon... Or maybe he had never been with Jon in the first place.

Maybe Ghost is all she has left now.

Maybe these Magic Woods have taken something from her, and gifted her something else in return.

Maybe the one she sought, the one she was always supposed to be find, had been the wolf himself.

My wolf. My beast of a man. My wolf of a man.

Perhaps Jon had been a wolf all along.

She nods her head once, twice, quickly, never taking her eyes from the beast's face, never letting her gaze drift. He watches her, the great direwolf with the pelt of Snow and the Stark scarlet wide eyes of her cape.

"Aye," she smiles, "My Ghost."

The wolf growls, makes a run for Ramsay's gut before she can give it another thought, before she can give him the signal to stop.

The sharpness of his teeth scrape, dig into the man's flesh, ripping into his side, tearing his skin to tatters. He grunts, groans, the beast's huskiness echoing alongside Ramsay's protests, screams of surrender.

The sound of torn leather has Sansa enraptured, unable to tear her eyes away from the scene. She is sure there are flecks of blood on her face, clothes and basket. She knows she should move, run, flee before anybody hears him and finds them.

But her body betrays her, and witnessing such a bloody death has never seemed to inviting. She would clap had she enough energy. She would smile had her face not partially frozen in the cold.

Her lips crack, and her nods reddens, and she can feel the bite of the cool air sting at her cheeks, as though someone is flicking their finger against her skin.

She burns, but she is made of solid ice. She is a mountain of cold embers, an iceberg of frozen ash.

He shouts, shrieks, screams like a little girl. He gives up fairly quickly, though, his body weakening.

He falls silent when Ghost has dug into his chest, ribs pulled apart, heart ripped from its cage.

It finishes before Sansa would like, Ghost lying down with his paws outstretched, mouth soaking red.

The crystal whiteness of his fur is ruined, drenched in blood and guts, an obvious warning sign of what he can do.

"Ghost."

The wolf rears its head to face her, watching as her blank expression turns to gratitude. He approaches then, standing up on four paws, moving to her side.

He sniffs at her side, muzzle against her hip, and she lets him rub remnants of her nightmare's stomach along the side of her cloak, staining the vibrant colour. He grunts into her side, and she pats his head, strokes the hard fur that hasn't been marred by ruby red blood.

"My wolf."

Jon.

"You don't have to worry anymore, Mother."

She came home some time ago, all battered and bruised, worn and weak. Her long limbs aching, and heart heavy.

Mother had shouted, screamed, pleaded to know where she had been.

Sansa had refused to speak, though. Ghost had left her side once they reached the edge of the village, and he had hurried off like the hunted prey of a hungry man.

Alone, she had made her way home, ignoring the stares and calls of villagers, bystanders that shouted out for her, face expressionless. The witch was nowhere to be seen, the drinking hole only filled with regular drunken men and whores.

The door to her home had been left open, and Sansa had pandered through without much of a thought. She dropped her basket, let the contents clash and collide inside.

Her Father had looked up from his seat, tears rising to his eyes once he caught sight of her, his eldest daughter returned. It's the most emotion she has seen from him in winters.

Arya had scolded her, questioned her to no answer; her little brothers too little to understand, too happy to have her home.

But Mother, her mother had slapped her, called her every name under the sun until Sansa had thrown herself down onto the floor, crumpled up into a heaping pile of tears and sobs, unable to hold it in any longer.

Back haunched, she leant her elbows on her knees, let the redness of her cape and hair surround her face. She hiccuped, shoved when someone tried to touch her, refuses to move from the sanctity of the doorway.

She doesn't know how long she spent there, in that position, hugging herself so tight she could almost feel her bones shift, crush. Eventually, her cries had subsided, her tears drying, staining her rose face with streaks of white.

"What do you mean?"

Rising from the floor, she'd moved to her room, lying down on the bed despite her ruined dress, despite her bloodied clothes.

Her mother came in shortly after, plucked dirtied boots from off of her feet, heated up the room with a small fire in the corner. Catelyn had attempted to remove the cloak off of her daughter, but had only been met with protests and groans in response.

Abandoning all hope to have Sansa bathe and change, she had thrown fur upon fur over the girl, sheltering her in from the cold.

It's nighttime now, Sansa notes, gazing out from the window, eyes peering out through her hair, over the scoop of her head. She snuggles tighter into the material, swallows a breath.

"Ramsay's gone." She blinks, stares straight ahead at the front door, squints to peer through the small cracks, "And he isn't going to come back."

"Sansa." The tone of her mother's voice shows concern, but her face is the picture of apology.

If she had known...

Jon.

"Grandmother," She starts, shoots her father the smallest of looks, closing her eyes after only a second, "She's gone, too."

It doesn't surprise her family, really. The woman was elderly, alone.

They don't ask, inquire; they just let her rest and wait for her to speak.

It's known that men should never travel along into the woods. Nobody dared.

Arya brings her a flask of water sometime later, and she sits at the bottom of the bed, hands in her lap.

"Did you kill him?"

She stares straight ahead, avoids Sansa's gaze, but the redhead can still spot the trace of a smile dancing along her little sister's lips.

"No." She offers, "But I let him die."

Turning to face her, Arya reaches a hand out, rests it on her sister's thigh, surprisingly comforting, "I'm glad you're home."

"Thank you."

"And I'm glad he isn't."

Sansa tries a smile, the corner of her mouth turning up just the slightest bit, and she knits her brows, slightly amused.

"What was it like?" Arya pries, leans closer, voice lowered, "In the Winter Woods? Father says it's dangerous, that it's a miracle you returned alive."

"It's... odd."

"Odd?" The younger girl frowns, chewing at her bottom lip, "Odd how?"

Before Sansa can reply, there's a loud pounding at the door, the old wood rattling, creaking at the sensation.

Catelyn has jumped up from her place at the dining table, stirring her pot of freshly cooked vegetables. She wipes her hands, takes a breath as she pulls the door open.

"Cat." The man greets, and Sansa recognises him as one of the young smiths from the town, Gendry. His brown hair is covered by a hat, his hands rubbing together, as though to keep warm, "Sorry to bother you this late, I... I know-"

"What is it?"

He doesn't pause, only raises his brows and peers into the family's home, "Is your daughter well enough to come outside, Cat?"

"Sansa?"

"Aye." He nods, shoots the redhead a small smile when he catches sight of her. "We're in need of her help, you see." He shrugs one shoulder, attempts a smile.

Catelyn sighs, pressing one hand on the doorframe, "She has only just picked herself up off of the floor and agreed to rest." She tells him, eyes warning, "She doesn't need to be helping you with whatever it is-"

"What is it?" Arya pipes up, hopping up from the end of the bed, folding her arms over her chest, "I can help."

Sansa watches, slowly rising to sit up in the bed, long fingers prying at the sides of her cloak. She pulls at the strings, draws it tighter.

"That's very kind of you, miss." He smiles down at Arya, "But I'm afraid only your sister can help us with this. You see, there's a man-"

"A man?"

"Aye." Gendry nods, scrunching his nose, "The young Mormont girl found him earlier tonight, just at the edge of the woods."

"Was it not Ramsay?"

Sansa's face drains of all colour then, and she pries the furs from off of her body, forcing them to the bottom of the bed.

"It can't be."

She slips on her boots, pulls her hood up with such an ease, all energy suddenly returned to her body.

Her hearts thumps beneath her chest, her blood flowing as fast as a current.

"Sansa."

She's already in the doorway then, and she can only give her mother one last look before she pushes past Gendry, Arya trailing at her feet.

Catelyn calls out to them from behind, watching as her daughter run after the young man who has sprinted ahead to lead the way.

They don't turn around, Sansa following the man with desperation, Arya at her heels in curiosity.

The younger girl overtakes them, shoving her way through the entrance to the pub when the door is pulled open by two tall men, barkeeps.

She stops at the foot of a table, emptied of punters, cleared of all cups and silverware.

Sansa can only catch her breath when she's finally inside, arms weak at her sides, chest heavy. Her heart won't still, the possibility of her dream being a reality perhaps a little too real, too cruel to be untrue.

If he's alive, then...

"Do you know him?"

Arya asks, thick brows fussing as she stares down at the man on the table. She wipes her finger over his forehead, pushing curled black locks from his face.

He is pale, cheeks rosy, but his chest is blue and yellow, battered and bloodied, and littered with old bruises. They've torn his shirt from his torso, wrapped bandages around his wounds. His brown eyes are closed, but she knows they would be darker if only he opened them. He lies unconscious, in some long sleep she wants so badly to wake him from. His breaths are laboured, raspy, and his face is longer and harder than she has ever seen it, broodier.

He is still unhealed, unhealthy. He is still weak, still unwell.

But, despite all of this - despite his cuts and scrapes and the dried blood that stains his face and neck, despite the puncture wound in his side, soaking the bandage with a thick, clotting layer of fresh blood - he is still here, and he is still alive.

He is breathing, and he survived.

"Jon."

[alexilulu]

10 Games I Played in 2017, Roughly Ranked

This is wildly long lol so have fun, idiots

#10: DESTINY 2

This is sort of awkward. Destiny 1 was a game I enjoyed with small reservations; it was obvious how hampered they were by their own backend in creating new content and design spaces to explore, prior to The Taken King. Even then, it had shining moments of joy for me. I adored the goofy dead ghost hunting like halo 2/3 skullfinding, using every trick at your dispoaal to find another morsel of insane, well-crafted tidbits of lore for this world that the game itself rarely even touched on, let alone explored. Destiny 2 was supposed to be the "we listened and we're fixing it" for that game, and a needed jump to a new backend that would free them to create the things they dreamed of.

The grimoire was removed wholesale, those bits of lore still true presumably but inaccessible in the game again. Instead of finding ghosts, you examine objects in the world, getting a 2-sentence Nolan North quip that usually is more funny than it is educational about this sprawling world they created. And it doesn't save that anywhere. We actually moved backwards in term of the lore's accessibility to the player, somehow. The game itself is still Destiny, helmet popping and aiming down sights and kicking balls around the tower, and it's storyline was ambitious in a way the original was not, actually making you feel at least a little weak for about 10 minutes before you're back to killing Fallen and then doing donuts on your Sparrow on top of their corpse. The game treats itself as both too serious and totally unserious in the same breath, a monologue of serious consequences punctuated by Cayde cradling a chicken and petting it gently. It's good, but it remains to see if it'll reach the same comfortable spot Destiny 1 got to by the end of it's lifespan.

9: NIOH Here's where I admit that some of these games I've played, in that I played it for a few hours and haven't had time to return to it. I have it on good faith that Nioh is an incredible game, and from the bits I've touched I know that to be at least probably true. I've heard it described more as a Diablo-esque loot-game pretending to be a Dark Souls ball-busting difficulty monster than vice versa. It's something I'm hoping to come back to, and if I'd been able to spend more time with, I likely would have put much further up the list.

8: Dishonored: Death of the Outsider Another game I fuckin' haven't had time to complete, Death of the Outsider is the thing I and several friends have wanted for years; Billie Lurk fucking shit up. And her powerset rules. I'm only like 2 missions in, but I'm looking forward to finishing the rest sometime before Christmas, hopefully. Dishonored 2 was definitely a game I was thrilled to play, and I know this will be more of the same.

7: Resident Evil 7 What could be better than the creeping horror of a deranged family out in the Louisiana Bayou? Resident Evil 7 was honestly so unbelievably effective at learning from the last 5+ years of immersive horror games while still, at it's heart, being a goofy Resident Evil game under that. That style clashes at times; The moment when you go outside to the courtyard of the mansion and find a double-keycard locked door when the most advanced thing in the whole house before now has been the goofy projector-doors that hearken back to the ancient history of the series. I think it sticks it's landing well, with a good lategame twist and plenty of goofy superscience in between. I've been meaning to go back to it for the Chris Redfield DLC, but I don't know if I actually want to, to be honest. That game was a fun ride, and they did their best to add the usual replay stuff like a NG+ gun and such, but I think I'm okay leaving it where I left it, on good terms.

6: Tacoma I bought the hoodie that came with a LUNAR TRANSFER STATION TACOMA patch Fullbright sold long before that game had it's transformation following feedback from beta testers, and I never stopped looking forward to it coming out. Gone Home was like a...I won't say formative, because it isn't true, but it was definitive for me. A story about two girls falling in love together doesn't come around that often, and the attention to the setting and feel of being in this old, deeply lived in house. Tacoma shows that same love of character and place in spades, giving you an even more intimate look at the world the crew of the Tacoma lived in together. I honestly lost it when I noticed during a scene that next door, their cat was asleep on the shelf above the laundry machine. Just the smallest details and love shown for everyone involved broke my heart and put it back together in a different shape. A vision of a world utterly fucked by corporatist greed such that they are essentially their own extragovernmental entities, and people live on anyway, just being people. It's so sad, but still sort of hopeful? Even if the world is garbage, people will keep on living as best as they can. It's very millennial of myself to find solace in that idea, honestly, but that's this game for you, one crafted based on the excesses of the last decade spiraling out of control.

5: Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood In any other year, this game would be #1. You're gonna hear me say that a few more times here before we're done. Final Fantasy 14 has been a constant in my life for the last 3 years, delivering again and again the sort of joy that only comes from a game lovingly made by people dedicated to their own love of the genre, the setting and their playerbase. That's the only way I can describe it, lovingly crafted. Naoki Yoshida loves this game, and so does his team, and every inch of that game radiates this. The storyline itself is a little meandering, jumping from a failed revolution to formenting a successful one, to returning triumphant with new armies and allies at your back. Everyone in that game is, again, a joy to be around. It has a somewhat similar roadtrip feel to Heavensward, but never treads the same ground in the same way. It's more like...taking your friend abroad to another country, while Heavensward was a road trip across a state that stops and starts in fits and spurts. I don't know if this expansion will hold my attention in the same way that Heavensward did, or that A Realm Reborn did. I don't know if I have that part of myself that's willing to ride with an MMO across the lifetime of it's expansion this time. I want to support this game, and the people who make it, and my friends who do still ride with it. But this might be my last expansion.

4: Tales of Berseria If this came out any other year, it might be my game of the year. You'll hear that 2 more times before we're done. I've never been a Tales person. I know people who are, and I understand the mystique, but I never Understood it until repeated praise (and some very cute lesbian ship art) forced my hand into buying it. I don't know if I'm gonna be ok when I finish it. The game is very baldly about doing bad things. The protagonist is a demon on a blatantly self-destructive revenge quest against the self-appointed savior of the world, aided by a demon swordsman who wants to kill his brother, a witch with existentially depressed ennui, a boy who barely knows who he is, a pirate cursed to bring ruin to those around him, and a pure maiden with a tragic backstory trying to do good in the world who has fallen in with them through a series of missteps so comic they're mostly just sad. Together, this totally uncohesive group of misfits abandoned by the world, rejecting it and destroying everything that stands in their way. It crushes my heart on the regular. This is definitely a 60+ hour JRPG because I just got to hour 20 and there's absolutely still so much left to go. They've introed villain after villain, placing the shotgun on the mantelpiece for Velvet to mangle herself with just to kill them in the blast. This game breaks my heart. The world it's in is awful, every party member has been utterly ruined by some facet of it that happened to conflict with a totally normal thing they wanted. They're the devil's rejects. And I love every single one of them.

3: Butterfly Soup Remember all the praise I gave Gone Home back there? This game is like that for me this year. You can just make a game about some queer girls playing baseball and being in love, and I'll love it with all my heart. It's not hard for me to peg why I love it; Akarsha is like a fucking mirror pointed directly at my face with a moustache painted on it, Diya's anxiety and gay panic is so deeply relatable that I very nearly cried the first time she said the word Lesbian to herself and immediately tried to convince herself she's not gay. Brianna Lei's depiction of young, messy, goofy girls living with all the problems that happen to kids their age; insane parents, abuse, self-discovery, a lot of bad jokes and getting all too real at a moment's notice. I honestly cannot wait to see what else she can bring to the table.

1 (TIE): NieR: Automata If this game came out any other year, it would be #1 without effort. The original NieR did something at just the right time, with just the right amount of feeling. A rejection of the trend of father figures rescuing their child and getting the good ending, NieR was a quest to protect a girl to the detriment of everyone around the protagonist, including the girl herself. The final ending of that game ends with you erasing yourself from the world so that you never existed, to save someone who deserves to live and would have if not for you. NieR's destructive quest to protect his daughter literally destroys the world around him, disrupting millennia of careful planning and manipulation by people far smarter than him. All because they took his daughter. Damn the world, he wanted what was his. NieR: Automata follows another 10,000 years after that, in the same world, scarred by a war that broke out centuries ago. The game frequently lies to both you the player and you the protagonist, but the protagonist already knows better, and simply doesn't let on. The game focuses, instead, on the ways that something built by humans craves to become like its long-gone masters. Androids are built to be physically ideal, sexy and at times loving to one another, because that's what humans did. It's unclear if they chose this for themselves or if humans did it to them (and obviously Yoko Taro chose for them to be like this, human choice or no), but it's how they live. The machines they fight do the same, playing a phone game across millennia of what humanity was, trying to fill the holes in their life with gender binaries, sexual intercourse, children and family and love. What separates them from us? Are we any different? Do we deserve to be different? Do they? I don't know how to talk about this game coherently. There's so much there. People recently have been talking about it again, as lists like these come up, and so many bad takes are floating around that it crushes my heart. 2B's sexy, so the game is horny. It's bad because you have to replay it 5 times (no, wrong, bad). It's bad because 9S is a softboy and 2B could have been a lesbian with any of the women throwing themselves at her (come on, dude, at least try). I'm not gonna try to rebut any of these, because the game itself doesn't need my defense. It stands on its own. It's the best game I've played in the last 5 years, in all likelihood. It's definitely my favorite of the last decade.

1 (TIE): Persona 5 If this game came out on any other year, it would be #1 with a bullet. This game had an insanely tortured development cycle. Pushed back again, then again, then again. Remember that February 2012 graphic that used to go around, and likely will right around Valentine's Day? Characters were revamped, removed, redesigned 5 times in the case of Haru (who started out as a boy, somehow). But it's exactly the game I needed in 2017. I was a transplant in Texas in 2004, going into high school in a new state where we knew no-one and nobody. I was quiet, spending most of my time outside class reading the 6th Dark Tower novel, Song of Susannah, a 2 inch thich hardcover beast. Because it's high school, rumors started about whatever they thought I was because I was quiet and wore a hoodie to school regardless of the weather, hiding guns or knives or what have you. Akira's experience touched me, in ways I never thought I would be a decade after graduating. Shit, everyone touched me in some way. Yusuke's quiet acceptance of the abuse and labels applied to him by his teacher and his fellow students. Futaba's isolation in the wake of her mother's death hit me in the heart; I dropped out of college when my own mother had a spinal cord fusion in her lumbar spine that ruined her life, left her with 10% her previous mobility. I mourned for years. Haru's quiet demeanor and the immediate, effusive joy she displayed whenever she could be with her friends, no matter the context. Ryuji's bristling rage at authority that ridicules him. Even the side cast struck me in ways Persona 4 and 3 never did. Kawakami's tiredness with the world, her exploitation she brushes off as a fact of life. Takemi's cool acceptance of being forced from the job of her dreams into treating bruises and being blackballed by the world she worked to survive in. Sojiro's struggles with cruel family that would destroy the daughter he loves as his own. Persona 5 is a game about the ways that society is designed to strike down the odd man out, casting them aside as worthless or ridiculous. The simple girl run into a cult, the daughter of a model forced into a role she never asked for, the typecast and the downtrodden, who deserve so much better than the world they've been given. This is a deeply flawed game. Within hours of Ryuji standing side by side with Ann to defend her from the casual sexism of Kamoshida or any other number of aggressions, he becomes a slavering hound doing the same thing to his best friend. The writing, when it's not inconsistent, simply isn't there; Haru's final and rather grand entrance peters off into maybe a dozen lines she has in the main story following her introduction. 6+ years in development can do some bad stuff to a game. But I love it, despite all of that. I can see what this game could have been, with a less tortured development, with a director who didn't ask the character design to make all of the female confidants "cuter". With a more focused vision, a clearer goal, and a better route there. All of that said, I still love my satanic crime ring. And I probably always will.

[danielpico]

EL GRAN ENNUI O LA MONOTONÍA DE LO INSIGNIFICANTE: SEXUALIDAD, DISPOSITIVO FEMENINO Y ABURRIMIENTO

Dra. Sonia Núñez Puente Professor – Department of Spanish Vanderbilt University

 En el texto fundacional de Reinhard Kuhn The Demon of Noontide. Ennui in Western World Literature, una exploración nueva que afecta a la configuración del concepto del ennui se describe como una fuerza dinámica que corre pareja a la formación de la modernidad1:

The idea does not reflect a reality completely formed without it, as a stream reflect the willows along its banks; it becomes one of the factors of reality and helps to create that which without its action would not have been or would have been completely different.2

El ennui no es, por tanto, tan sólo una idea que arranca de la fabricación textual, sino que imbricada en la noción de espacio y tiempo3 determina el ritmo intrínsico del discurso literario. Es, por tanto, en el discurso literario donde encuentra su representación más precisa, especialmente, en el ámbito de la literatura decimonónica y, concretamente, en la novela de la burguesía de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, que sistematiza desde su propia construcción toda una tipología del ennui4. Esta operación que la novela decimonónica lleva a cabo ha sido elaborada en la definición intentada desde varias perspectivas: desde el terreno de la psicología hasta el campo de la sociología o la teología.5 Los orígenes del concepto han sido ciertamente muy discutidos, y de ellos diversas derivaciones han sido propuestas desde la crítica y la creación literaria. La etimología que ha sido generalmente adoptada es la latina odium y con toda probabilidad la que deriva de la expresión esse in odio6, aunque han sido muchas las interpretaciones que el término y el concepto han adoptado desde la Edad Media.7

Desde una óptica moderna, será Pascal8 quien recupere en sus Pensées toda una confiscación de la privación inherente al ennui. Es decir, desde las manifestaciones modernas, el ennui se recupera como un elemento significativo en la aproximación crítica al fenómeno de la restricción de las capacidades del individuo moderno para la acción. Sin embargo, en la inclinación hacia la inactividad hay un signo diferenciador que distingue el ennui del aburrimiento9 entendido en términos generales, y es que el primero está dotado de un sentido de desorden metafísico del que éste último carece.

A este carácter transcendente y que va más allá de la condición meramente psicológica del ennui se añade, en palabras de Andrè Gidé, un profundo temor casi convertido en pánico, un recurrente aislamiento de la realidad circundante transformado en exilio perpetuo del resto del mundo10:

When I found myself alone in my room that evening, an intolerable anguished seized me, body and soul; my ennui almost turned into fear. A wall of rain separated me from the rest of the world, far from any passion, far from life. It enclosed me in a a gray nightmare, among strange beings, cold blooded and colorless, whose hearts had ceased beating long ago.11

Frente a la aguda conciencia del ennui, Gide establece una conformación sustancial del tedio burgués y ésta es la consideración que el ennui refuerza; es decir, su condición de experiencia total que afecta de igual modo al cuerpo y al espíritu. Por ello, y quizá desde una perspectiva más sutil no se puede entender el ennui sin considerar previamente el extrañamiento, la alienación y el sentido atemporal12 que lo acompaña en sus manifestaciones en el texto literario.

Siguiendo un orden estrictamente crítico, Kuhn acierta a compilar en cuatro características fundamentales el fenómeno del ennui, que Gide13 ya había determinado en 1911, recogiendo bien es cierto las definiciones burguesas del XIX. Así pues, de acuerdo con la estructura conformadora propuesta por Kuhn, éste es un estado psicosomático que se manifiesta de igual manera en la actividad corporal que en la del espíritu; que se trata, sin lugar a dudas, de un fenómeno endógeno, autónomo y ciertamente autogenerador de nuevas pulsiones; es independiente de la voluntad anulada del sujeto que lo experimenta y, finalmente, se trata de una condición totalizadora que determina un estado de extrañamiento, de disolución subjetiva con respecto a la estructura social de la que el individuo se aleja sin solución de continuidad. Esto es, el individuo afectado por el ennui queda estigmatizado e imbricado en su nueva condición de paria, lo que revela una configuración que comienza a producir en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX un nuevo tipo literario: el de la mujer exiliada de la sociedad burguesa, atrincherada en el espacio asocial en el que, gracias a la expulsión provocada por el tedio, inicia la gestación de un nuevo desorden pulsional paralelo y, a un tiempo, ajeno al sistema del orden pasional burgués.

Ensaya Kuhn, así pues, una definición sintética del término ennui y del concepto que éste lleva aparejado: un vacío psicológico, una hoquedad existencial, en definitiva, una nada casi sartreana14:

By reducing these multitudinous characteristics to their essential common factor, we can tentatively define ennui as the state of emptiness that the soul feels when it is deprived of interest in action, life, and the world (be it this world or another), a condition that is the immediate consequence of the encounter with nothingness, and has an inmediate effect a disaffection with reality.15

Esta definición destaca principalmente el carácter de ajenidad, de alteridad —que explorará la nueva ciencia de la psicología— característico del ennuiy que, consecuentemente, resulta en un fenómeno dual de elevación sobre lo cotidiano y de conciencia minimizada del propio destino, que reduce lo monótono a la experiencia resignada del discurrir vital. No obstante y, aunque, supone un esfuerzo ingente de exhaustiva documentación, el estudio de Kuhn se vertebra en torno a una cuidadosa argumentación, exclusivamente literaria, que deja a un lado las consideraciones sociales, políticas y económicas. Características éstas que modelan también la aparición de un sentimiento aguzado de tedio, tanto en la vida real como en la imaginada a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Y es que se hace necesario relacionar el surgimiento del mito del jardín de civilización decimonónico con la incorporación de la categoría del ennui al discurso social. Nace, precisamente en esta época, el mito del progreso16 inducido desde las categorías políticas y económicas.

Se trata, pues, de una nueva religión, de un nuevo credo al que la sociedad burguesa se aferra en el proceso de construcción de la modernidad. La Revolución Industrial estaba ya en avanzado estado de consolidación y, mediante una silenciosa evolución progresiva, comienza a cambiar la fisonomía de la burguesía que inicia un proceso de desarrollo no siempre lineal17:

A diferencia de la toma de la Bastilla que produjo el cambio, o el vertiginoso proceso de cambios, en veinticuatro horas, la Revolución Industrial había de reformar la anatomía de la nueva sociedad paso a paso,en verdad más por un desarrollo evolutivo que revolucionario. Tras un período de ensayos, de investigaciones individuales y descubrimientos capitales, de una fértil colaboración entre visionarios, científicos, industriales y promotores, hacia 1840 estaban las bases de la mecanización de la industria tan sólidamente asentados que los historiadores no dudan en llamar a la fase que se inicia en esa fecha la Segunda Revolución Industrial, el momento en que se introduce la máquina-herramienta, se produce la gran expansión de los nuevos métodos fabriles y tienen lugar, al compás de los tecnológicos, los grandes cambios sociales.18

La consolidación de los avances técnicos predispone al imaginario burgués a una suerte de reforma de la vida cotidiana que cobra vigencia en el establecimiento de un estado prolongado de paz y desarrollo tecnológico y científico. La inauguración el uno de mayo de 1851 de la Gran Exposición abrió una época de continuo bienestar; el Palacio de Cristal, centro visible de la Exposición, emblematiza la presencia ubicua del ideal burgués de uniformidad y avance socioeconómico; lo que se hizo extensivo al resto de Europa y, en un ambicioso proyecto, al resto de la humanidad.19 La Exposición permaneció abierta durante seis meses hasta el quince de octubre, y constituyó en palabras de Benet un templo de culto a los dos elementos medulares del orden de la burguesía decimonónica20:

La Exposición fue el templo donde se rindió culto a las deidades del momento: el trabajo y la paz, las dos panaceas capaces de conjurar todos los males de la sociedad industrial, a su vez articuladas por las dos filosofías -el cristianismo y el libre cambio- que en feliz conjunción podrían cubrir con sus soluciones todos los problemas espirituales y políticos.21

Sin embargo, estos dos pilares sobre los que se construyó la llamada paz del siglo son especialmente atacados desde los elementos más críticos de la sociedad.22 Crece así, en una proporción cada vez mayor según avanzan los años tras el ecuador del siglo XIX, el número de los llamados enemigos de la época que dedicaban sus esfuerzos a desestabilizar el orden impuesto por el progreso científico y económico responsables, según su criterio, de la mediocridad que minaba los cimientos de la burguesía del desarrollo. Ciertamente, se podría decir que la paz del siglo escondía una tensión dinámica que nació de la identificación de dos términos: progreso científico y progreso moral. Efectivamente, el avance científico y técnico que arrastró la Revolución Industrial caminaba a una velocidad distinta de las necesidades de los que no acertaban a encontrar un espacio en la distribución burguesa de poderes.23 Si bien una minoría accedía a lugares preeminentes en la disposición de la sociedad, la gran mayoría veía mermada tanto su capacidad de acción, como el ámbito de ubicación más allá de la frontera que la propia burguesía imponía para ello. Steiner acude a la creciente densidad en la experiencia humana para acotar una suerte de definición de la pasividad mórbida que se iba apoderando de los espíritus más avezados en la percepción de los procesos históricos y que iniciaban así un lento pero seguro estancamiento a partir de 1815. En su estudio sobre el ennui atribuye G. Steiner, precisamente, a éste la dicotomía que se estableció en la historia de Europa a partir de 1815. Es decir, a la colisión entre la nueva aceleración del tiempo, producto del futuro mesiánico que las visiones políticas utópicas24 construyeron, y el largo periodo de calma que siguió:

Lo que siguió fue, por supuesto, un largo período de reacción y calma. Según el propio idioma político que uno tenga, puede ver aquí ora un siglo de represión, ejercida por la burguesía que había aprovechado la Revolución Francesa y las extravagancias napoleónicas para obtener ventajas económicas, ora como cien años de gradualismo liberal y de orden civilizado.25

El aflojamiento de la tensión26, la incapacidad para una nueva renovación tras las guerras europeas y la euforia primera de los avances de la Revolución Industrial, es según Steiner, el origen de un corrosivo ennui propio de la nueva edad burguesa:

Para muchos que experimentaron personalmente el cambio, aquel aflojamiento de la tensión y aquel correr el telón sobre la mañana que apuntaba fueron profundamente decepcionantes. En aquellos años posteriores a Waterloo es donde debemos buscar las raíces del gran ennui que ya en época tan temprana como 1819 Schopenhauer definía como la enfermedad corrosiva de la nueva edad.27

Cualquier atisbo de revolución28, de cambio era la única alternativa a un tedio, el de la vida cotidiana, que desarrolla una incapacidad enfermiza y hasta narcisista para proseguir con el ritmo moroso de lo cotidiano; y que transforma al soldado napoleónico en un funcionario del sistema absorto tan sólo en la contemplación propia, despreocupándose del exterior a sí mismo. Un exterior que a su vez, había perdido ya el esplendor de la acción en el campo de batalla en favor de una continua inercia.

Una reserva de energías remanente29 quedaba, según Steiner, a merced de una nueva canalización de las fuerzas revolucionarias excedentes sin espacio concreto donde definir su constitución, esto es, en el que posibilitar una transformación o, más bien diríamos, una ocupación de la energía excedente; siendo así que ésta se disocia de la acción inherente al progreso revolucionario y comienza a modular la vertebración del ennui, en el que encuentra un campo receptivo de expansión.

Esta tensión que dinamizó la producción literaria de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, fue según Steiner el punto de partida del desarrollo de la nostalgia del desastre que no sólo llevará al burgués a los grandes genocidios del siglo XX30, sino también a nuestro juicio, a un nuevo ámbito de exploración de la pulsión desterrada. Y ello sin menoscabo alguno del modo de ser burgués, al que fascinó sobremanera las nuevas construcciones patológicas31 a las que dedicaba la energía sustraída:

Los ideales románticos de amor, especialmente el acento puesto en el incesto, dramatizan la creencia de que el extremismo sexual, el cultivo de lo patológico puede restaurar la existencia personal a la plenitud de la realidad y negar de algún modo el grisáceo mundo de la clase media. Es lícito ver en el tema byroniano de la condenacióm por el amor prohibido y en el Liebestad wagneriano sustitutivos de aquellos perdidos peligros de la acción revolucionaria.32

Alfred de Musset en La confesión de un hijo del siglo atribuye al cultivo de la pasión frente a la racionalización de las primeras décadas del XIX, la condición deseante del hombre que en esas fechas no se resignaba al traje negro, ni a la visión reducida, estancada en los límites de la realidad constreñida del funcionario de la época:

Pero la juventud no se resignaba. Es indudable que se dan en el hombre dos potencias ocultas que luchan hasta la muerte. Una de ellas, clarividente y fría, se agarra a la realidad, la calibra, la sopesa y juzga el pasado. La otra está sedienta de porvenir y se lanza hacia lo desconocido. cuando la pasión arrastra al hombre, la razón le sigue llorando y advirtiéndole del peligro; pero, en cuanto aquél se ha detenido ante la voz de la razón, en cuanto se dice: "Es cierto, soy un loco, ¿dónde iba?", la pasión le grita: "¿Y yo, voy entonces a morir?".33

Atentos los más afortunados a la seducción del libertinaje34 y los menos a las grandes frases, como apunta Musset, un sentimiento corrosivo hizo presa en ellos alimentando la pasividad y declarando así tácitamente un frente abierto en el aparentemente homogéneo escenario burgués:

Un sentimiento de inexpresable malestar empezó, pues, a fermentar en todos los jóvenes corazones. Condenados a la inacción por los soberanos del orbe, entregados a patrones de toda especie, a la ociosidad y al tedio, los jóvenes vieron cómo se retiraban sus espumeantes olas contra las cuales habían dispuesto sus brazos. Todos aquellos gladiadores frotados con aceites sentían, en el fondo de su alma, una insoportable miseria. Los más adinerados optaron por el libertinaje. Quienes disfrutaban de una mediocre fortuna, tomaron estado resignándose al traje talar o a la espada. Los más pobres se lanzaron al entusiasmo en frío, a las grandes frases, al horrible mar de la acción sin norte.35

Es así que la representación de este estado de desesperanza que Musset nos describe, se presta a ser leída como una ficccionalización de la negación expresa inherente al ennui ofreciendo una versión desolada que nos devuelve a una negación de los valores que, si anteriormente constituían los pilares de la sociedad, son en esta época de Musset objeto tan sólo de burla36 por parte de aquellos que viven un tiempo vacío y monótono:

De este modo los jóvenes hallaban una forma de emplear la fuerza inactiva en la afectación del despecho. Burlarse de la gloria, de la religión, del amor, del mundo entero, constituye un no flaco consuelo para quienes no saben qué hacer. De ese modo se burla uno de sí mismo y, a la vez, se da la razón al espolearse. Aparte de que es dulce creerse desgraciado, cuando no se está sino vacío e irritado.37

Y es, naturalmente, en este momento cuando la imagen femenina confisca el arquetipo del ennui en tanto que al mismo tiempo cumple la figuración del ángel doméstico;38 indicio de una sociedad asentada en los principios que tanto Kuhn como Steiner confirman en la descripción del grand ennui. La domesticidad se convierte por lo que a la mujer se refiere en el símbolo de la estabilidad burguesa39, de la paz del siglo, y es así que ésta acoge en su ámbito la pasividad que al hombre se le impone en las nuevas profesiones a las que destina su empeño. Si el hombre es ya por la primera época del siglo XIX funcionario, la mujer es, fundamentalmente, la raíz misma del hogar burgués. La incapacidad de ésta es, sin embargo, seña de identidad frente a la potencialidad del hombre en el mundo de los negocios o del comercio. La feminidad40 comenzaba, pues, a delimitarse por entonces, a centrar sus propósitos en la definición de la misma mediante la expresa aceptación del modelo de una concepción particular de la vida burguesa doméstica. La casa burguesa41 emerge, de este modo, como el recinto exclusivo de la mujer que, vuelta sobre sí misma, se ve recluída en ella, haciendo de su encierro su morada física y también el interior de su única vida: la privada. Negada, encerrada, ocupada en el mantenimiento de una estructura social que comienza a serle ajena, la mujer burguesa revela la potencia vencida de la acción, del estímulo pulsional y pasa a representar, a emblematizar, en suma, el prototipo de la feminidad que será, en definitiva, a nuestro juicio, el arquetipo del ennui que se desliza en el texto literario de la figura masculina a la femenina.

En su importante estudio Nacimiento de la mujer burguesa Julia Varela regula mediante el dispositivo de feminización el mecanismo de expulsión de la mujer burguesa del recinto de poder, de la vida pública excluyente, ya que éste en el siglo XIX recluye a la mujer en el nuevo régimen de la interioridad:

El concepto de dispositivo de feminización que permite mostrar la articulación del nacimiento de la prostitución, con la institucionalización del matrimonio cristiano, con la expulsión de las mujeres burguesas de los recintos del saber académico legítimo, y con los programas de subjetivación que desarrollaron los humanistas para las mujeres del patriciado urbano pone de manifesto el nacimiento de un sistema de racionalización de la vida de las mujeres de determinadas clases sociales, allí donde la mayor parte de los historiadores positivistas únicamente han percibido campos diseminados e inconexos.42

La definición que Valera elabora del dispositivo de feminización nos acerca, pues, al concepto foucaltiano del juego de poderes en el que es preciso acudir a un proceso de carácter reflexivo de racionalización que permite comprender la formación de estrategias y tácticas de legitimación de una categoría nueva; la de la feminización, que, a nuestro juicio, encarna el concepto, analizado en mayor profundidad por la crítica, del ennui. Es en esta época, mediado ya el siglo XIX, precisamente el momento en que la categoría o el dispositivo de feminización se vincula, una vez recodificada por la moderna división que se estableció entre los espacios públicos y privados, a la categoría del ennui; adquiriendo así un estatus extramuros de la producción social de modo que la esfera de producción relega al exilio de las relaciones marginales toda manifestación ajena a la organización interna de la propia sociedad, inmersa ya en el modelo del incipiente capitalismo.43 El ennui, al igual que el recién estrenado dispositivo de feminización se sitúa, de este modo, en un terreno híbrido, a medio camino entre las relaciones de poder que lo problematizan y las posibilidades de exclusión del sistema burgués que éste propicia. La experiencia de resistencia que ambos dispositivos esencializan es consustancial a unos presupuestos implícitos de los que el estudio de Kuhn ya daba buena cuenta; y a través de los que la creciente inactividad, en la que se ve instalada la mujer burguesa, construye el dispositivo de feminización en la génesis misma del ennui. Es éste la única categoría capaz de hacer explícita la concepción de raíz burguesa de la nueva mujer que, representada en la inacción, amplía su anclaje en dicha categoría mediante el funcionamiento productivo de poderes y saberes concretos en la vida cotidiana.

En el inicio del modelo burgués, la mujer pierde la condición social que le es propia en otras épocas y minimiza su actividad pública, de modo que sólo dentro de la esfera privada encuentra un espacio propio.44 Erika Bornay argumenta a este respecto la última relación existente entre la pasividad del dispositivo de feminización y la emergencia del ennui al tiempo que ambas categorías se implican en un proceso más amplio de relaciones entre las diversas formas de subjetivización:

Pero, aun alcanzada esta "corona", nunca la mujer ha estado más ociosa, ha permanecido más pasiva y se ha visto más desprovista de responsabilidades de otro orden que no sea el referido al estricto espacio doméstico. El famoso ennui del decadente, aunque de otra calidad y procedencia, era el mismo que debieron sentir -y padecer- muchas de las esposas de la opulenta sociedad bienpensante del siglo.45

Serán, según Bornay, varias las representaciones que adquiere la categorización del dispositivo femenino, del inmutable Ella.46 Las artes plásticas se ocuparon largamente de la ociosidad de la mujer burguesa, del ennui destilado lentamente en la formación de su propia estructura, de su capacidad escasa para hallar los espacios de acción social y también del ennui que, como disposición dialéctica, construye junto a la categoría de la feminización una exploración última de la mujer tediosa, que desembocará a finales de siglo en el arquetipo literario de la femme fatale. Como señala B. Dijkstra47la guerra contra la nueva mujer, contra el poder asocial de la femme fatale comienza a librarse en el discurso de la novela del siglo XIX. Es ésta una guerra asentada en el poder exacerbado, intimidador e invasor del dispositivo de sexualidad48, que junto a la categoría del ennui, se convierte en la instrumentalización social del dispositivo de feminización. La mujer inicia su andadura en el límite de los parámetros de la sociedad burguesa; iniciando así la presencia inquietante de la sexualidad intrusiva49, aniquiladora que, por via de la pulsión entrópica, vino a desequilibrar el sistema burgués de poderes que Foucault atomiza en su Historia de la sexualidad. Frente a la sistematización del orden burgués se configura subterráneamente un poder altamente corrosivo, afianzado en la estructura centrípeta de la esfera de la sexualidad. Éste hace arrancar del centro de la médula burguesa una redistribución de la categoría de lo femenino que amenaza los cimientos del pensamiento filosófico50, y que desde la mitad del siglo XIX hasta principios del XX acerca la noción masculinizante del etermo femenino a la creciente inseguridad de un elemento corruptor de las estructuras burguesas: la mujer creada y modulada en función de los principios del dispositivo del ennui.

Hemos llegado, pues, desde nuestro análisis de la creación y asentación en el siglo XIX del dispositivo de feminización reconducido en su propia estructura por el dispositivo de sexualidad y del ennui. De éste último hemos intentado desglosar una caracterización desde las varias perspectivas abordadas: la literaria en la génesis del discurso de Kuhn, la histórico-social de Steiner y la psicológica que más adelante desembocará en el concepto de abulia noventayochista.51 De todas ellas se ha de considerar, sobre todo a mi juicio, un aspecto necesariamente definitorio en el desarrollo del dispositivo de sexualidad decimonónico relacionado con el surgimiento del tedio52 que es, naturalmente, la dicotomía establecida, a partir de la creación del dispositivo de sexualidad, entre éste y el ennui. Ésta es una relación dialéctica y sustancialmente móvil que sitúa a ambas categorías en una suerte de ampliación de sus propias identidades.

Concebida la categoría pulsional como una pasión al margen de la configuración social burguesa, se sustrae en su desarrollo a la categoría del ennui. Ésta última híbrida, exiliada y en constante riesgo de disolución estimula, por tanto, la condición de misterio fantasmático de la desvertebración del orden burgués, y se diferenciará así de la melancolía en su pérdida última de ubicación no del objeto perdido, sino del propio espacio perdido. Un ámbito hurtado a la nueva mujer que sólo mantiene como suya la pulsión sexual entrópica a la que opone en un complejo juego de poderes establecidos y transgredidos, la monotonía de lo insignificante que es el ennui. Y que, sin embargo, debido a la complejidad de su constitución puede, al tiempo, establecer un poder de sublimación y catalización de lo excepcional que las representaciones burguesas normalizan en el dispositivo de feminización:

El aburrimiento es, en cierto modo, el más sublime de los sentimientos humanos. No es que yo crea que del examen de tal sentimiento nazcan aquellas consecuencias que muchos filósofos han extraído de él; sin embargo, el no poder estar satisfecho de ninguna cosa terrena, ni, por así decirlo, de la tierra entera; el considerar la inacalculable amplitud del espacio, el número y la mole maravillosa de los mundos, y encontrar que todo es poco y pequeño para la capacidad del propio ánimo; imaginarse el número de mundos infinitos, y el universo infinito, y sentir que nuestro ánimo y nuestros deseos son aún mayores que el mismo universo, y siempre acusar a las cosas de su insuficiencia y de su nulidad, y, padecer necesidades y vacío, y, aún así, aburrimiento, me parece el mayor signo de grandeza y de nobleza que se pueda ver en la naturaleza humana. Por eso el tedio es poco conocido por los hombres de escasa importancia y poquísimo o nada por los otros animales.53

Concluimos, de este modo, un nuevo acercamiento a la categoría del ennui realizada desde la aproximación del discurso de la novela del XIX al dispositivo de la sexualidad y de feminización. Se hace, pues, necesaria una exploración detallada de los complejos procesos de formación y desarrollo en la literatura de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX de la categoría del ennui que emblematiza la figura femenina en una nueva proyección a través de unas categorías, hasta ahora poco analizadas desde este punto de vista, como la del matrimonio, la pasividad femenina, el tiempo circular o la propia pulsión sexual.54 Es, de este modo, el siglo XIX el receptor de una emergente conceptualización del ennui arrancando del dispositivo sexual y anidando, hasta nuestra época, en la formación del moderno constructo de la imagen femenina.

https://webs.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero14/g_ennui.html

[emmyewesseyesee]

shamir – hope

this is a very special, heartfelt and generous gift indeed.

and it says so much about the man that has bestowed it upon us: his generosity of spirit, his kindness of heart, and his extra-special vocal gift—all of which clearly know no reasonable human bounds. his smile, his love, his performance are all just truly humbling and infectious in their completely altruistic and unequivocal goodness.

i began writing these words around a month ago when shamir’s hope first arrived, but various things got in the way. however, its spirit of immediacy, its hope, the honesty in its flaws are all still just as vital, perhaps now even more so—indeed, with life so relatively short, maybe done is far better than perfect—and while that might feel uncomfortable for someone like myself who wrangles far too much over choosing just the right words to deploy and aesthetics to present, it does chime with my own view that life is fundamentally flawed and thereby music should similarly represent the crackle-and-pop of its surface noise and grime.

in this vein, hope feels direct, unencumbered, fresh, cathartic, humble and downright decent. throughout, shamir bailey presents his achingly beautiful falsetto with all its power as well as its fragility, its resonance, its range, its dynamic, its fluctuations and inconsistencies, and as such it comes across as a thoroughly endearing, genuine and very human instrument. by surrounding it with his own ramshackle entourage of dirtily buzzing overdrive, affectionately plucked bass, joyfully jangly guitar, rewardingly rickety piano, cavernously fat toms, tightly flat-packed and laconic percussion, he creates a true sense of there being an ‘always there to catch me should i fall’ camaraderie to this one-man collective. even his own occasional overdubbed choir strives to makeshift re-attach the wings to this fallen angel as he once again strives to fly and ultimately soars.

throughout, the songs are presented with such tenderness and simplicity, and there’s a compelling tension between existing ennui and demons and signs of future hopes and dreams. it’s not overwrought nor overthought, simply delivered, as is, hands held open in an unconditional ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ offering, and is all the better for it. it’s the lo-fi hum, the way each song enters and exits (so keen to share and be heard as they tumble delightfully into each other), the keen enthusiasm and real emotion that provides the real window into shamir’s soul. and this is true soul. who needs the polished and the pristine when you’ve got a real soul that shimmers and sparkles with raw energy and good intentions, care and devotion?

in a way, i kinda didn’t want to load too many of my own words of review onto such honest intentions for fear of them forming a part of the critical mechanism that perhaps serves to deconstruct and constrict the artistry, but hey, i only tend to choose to write about the things i love and enjoy, so i certainly hope my own positive take on such a labour of love is deemed supportive, encouraging, well-intended and welcome. suffice to say, from “hope” right through to “bleed it out” the album is an absolute pleasure to listen to, and the fact that it was recorded from start to finish in a single weekend is even more impressive.

shamir’s sheer humility, creativity, dedication and application has undoubtedly resulted in an utterly stunning body of work that is precious, touching, refreshing, empathetic, moving, sincere and just wonderful on the ear. yet the fact that it might have simultaneously in some vital way helped to lift him from his own despair at the way he feels he has to present himself to share his astonishing talent is surely the most important exercise this particular weekend has served.

stay special in all that you do, shamir bailey, and keep on keepin’ on, because the magical things you create will always find a loving home…

[victorineb]

Fic Recs Mega Post

More fic recs for you fabulous fannibals, this time round there’s rare pairs a-plenty, actual devil Will Graham, and a fabulous Pacific Rim crossover AU

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Volume 1 by @fragile-teacup (fragile-teacup (Mrs_Gene_Hunt)): So what are the chances that Will and Hannibal emerge from the Atlantic with all their issues resolved, finally a stable unit, murder husbands for life? Pretty much none, right? Certainly, in this beautifully-written post-TWotL fic, there is still a massive amount of that typical Hannigram miscommunication, obfuscation and downright stubbornness that keeps our boys from their happy ending. None of which is made better by Hannibal keeping Will sedated while he recovers from his injuries, or by sequestering them in the house of the one person guaranteed to drive Will out of his mind with jealousy… Centred on that dinner hinted at by the post-credits scene in TWotL, this winds the tension between Will and Hannibal (and Bedelia) to a fever pitch, in an absolute riot of bitchiness, resentment and pining. And then busts everything wide open when Will just can’t keep his emotions under wraps any longer…

Tomorrow, More Sun by @shiphitsthefan: Beardogs (Nigel/Lee) is a new pairing for me but it took precisely five paragraphs of this fantastic fic to make me fall in love. For those who aren’t aware, Lee is the Hugh from the infamous “I like bears” gif, and more specifically is an adorable ball of sass and joy who loves wine and is suffering from terminal cancer (but don’t worry, this is very much not an angsty story). Anyway, our tale begins when Lee is suffering from the worst post-chemo effects of his life and, desperate for relief, begs his dealer – a certain formerly very bad man from Bucharest – to drive out in the snow and provide him with a hit. Now, I mentioned the part where Lee likes bears, right? And there’s no-one more bearlike than Nigel – even “New Nigel,” who’s had to reform his ways (a little) as a result of the bullet in his brain landing him in a wheelchair – and Lee is, unsurprisingly, infatuated. There follows a charming and romantic tale of getting high, telling wicked jokes, and maybe, just maybe, falling in love (but definitely getting the best shag of either man’s life).

To Fuel Your Radiance by @fancybedelia (GoldenUsagi): Mischa Lecter should have died. Should have… and did, except that her brother made a deal with the devil. Hannibal’s soul in exchange for Mischa’s life. Some forty years later, the devil pays Hannibal a visit (disguised as a rather handsome, blue-eyed man named Will) in order to see what he’s done with his life. And, as is the Hannigram way, a mutual interest quickly turns to something much more twisted and obsessive. The brilliant thing about this AU is that, despite being a devilishly sexy (literally), self-assured, phenomenally powerful version of himself, Will is still Will. He’s not some malevolent, flamboyant devourer of souls, he’s still conflicted and weighed down by the nature of what he is. Which leaves Hannibal to take up the role of tempter (yes, even to the Devil himself), drawing Will into killing with him (which, admittedly, takes much less effort with this version!) and falling helplessly in love with the beast that emerges.

Ugly by @slashyrogue (nightliferogue): We as a fandom should be immensely grateful to count slashy as one of our number. She turns out a frankly staggering number of AUs and rare pair fics (in addition to her wonderful Hannigram works) and they are all, without exception, imaginative and beautifully written. Recently she’s been writing a lot of Basic Chickens and this, her most recent (at the time of writing) might be the best yet. When Elias finds a strange, black egg in amongst the chickens, his superstitious brothers order him to smash it, fearing it contains a demon. Elias (of course, this is Elias) refuses, and tends to the egg until it hatches, revealing a small, black, winged monster, which Elias decides to keep,  christening it “Ugly.” Which is all well and good until it turns out that Ugly also sometimes takes the form of a man (quickly renamed Adam) whose determined seduction of Elias has worrying, potentially dangerous side-effects. This is Basic Chickens with a brilliant supernatural twist and the story is sexy, sweet, constantly surprising and very, very much worth your time.

Stricken by @crossroadscastiel (peacefrog): So say, instead of landing on the rocks at the bottom of that cliff, Will and Hannibal instead land in a completely different universe, one where everything seems to be the same, except that they’re not dead from their horrifying injuries. Seems like a win, right? Oh, except there’s the little issue of Hannibal suddenly producing slick and the pair of them needing to shag like bunnies every five minutes or they’ll explode. Yep, the boys are not in Baltimore anymore, they’re in an omegaverse, Hannibal’s in heat, and if they can stop knotting each other’s brains out for long enough, they’re going to need to have a serious talk about feelings. Wanna bet how well that turns out? This is such a fun exploration of the omegaverse concept, with our intrepid murder husbands utterly baffled by what’s happening to them and how they can deal with it. It’s also sexy and sweet as hell – if you’re not into a/b/o, give this a shot, I’d be surprised if it doesn’t change your mind.

Ananta by @unicornmagic (canis_m): A what-if fic, with the what-if in question being ‘how might things have gone, had Hannibal not rubber-stamped Will back into the field but instead recommended he receive further treatment. Oh, and asked him on a date while he’s at it.’ Well, in this ‘verse, it means Will stays away from murder scenes while Hannibal takes his place, that Will starts therapy with a certain blonde ice-queen, and Will has to navigate the beginnings of a relationship with Hannibal while contemplating when he should reveal that he’s asexual. This is a beautifully-paced, patiently crafted exploration of the complex relationship between these two characters and the ways in which they fit together with each other unlike with anyone else. Will’s asexuality is written with grace and sensitivity, as the writer explores the other, less obvious intimacies that he and Hannibal share. If you need something lovely in your life, read this.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by @desperatelyseekingcannibals (TigerPrawn): Mortimer (from Hysteria) is one of my favourite Hugh roles, so I’m always delighted when the adorable, slightly bumbly doctor turns up in a fic. And this one is so much fun, pairing Mortimer with Galen from Rogue One (via some timey-wimey shenanigans that land Galen back in ye olde England) and developing a very sweet romance between the two, even as they try to figure out how to get Galen home. These are two of the most decent characters in the madancy back catalogue and they work really wonderfully together, Mortimer’s eager earnestness nicely grounded by Galen’s steadiness. Plus I was very pleasantly surprised by how much chemistry the characters have together – not to put to fine a point on it, but they’re wicked hot XD. The rare pairs phenomenon is truly the gift that keeps on giving and this is one of my favourite ships to come out of it, please do hop on board and prepare to be totally charmed.

A Way to Live by @sugarmaus (Sugarmouse): Hannibal Lecter is in the market for a new slave. He goes through them quickly, always on the lookout for some elusive something that even Hannibal doesn’t seem able to define. When he spots Will Graham in the dealer’s catalogue, he thinks there’s a chance he may have found it, and when he sees the man in the flesh he is almost certain of it. But Hannibal soon learns an important lesson: Never Underestimate Will Graham. And so begins a complex, high-stakes game of shifting identities and hidden desires between master and slave, with Hannibal’s rigid control slipping further and further as he loses himself to his fascination with getting inside Will’s mind. Essentially an AU in which Hannibal can buy and dispose of murder interns instead of influencing them via therapy this is a sharp and intense character study of our darling cannibal. Hannibal’s ennui and loneliness are front and centre here as he both strives to gain control over Will and hopes that he will not be able to. It’s fascinating, compelling, intelligent stuff, with more than a few surprises up its sleeves.

Fais Do-Do by @moku-youbi: Will is on the run. He has lost control and shot a man, and now he’s tasted blood for the first time and Jack Crawford is on his tail. Which is how he winds up staying at The Little Bear Inn, owned by Mischa Lecter and currently being run by her brother while she is unwell. Of course, this is an establishment run by the Lecters, so nothing is quite as it seems and it may not turn out to be the safe haven Will is looking for. Even if Hannibal is unexpectedly easy to talk to (and not too hard on the eyes, either). Then again, Will’s got some secrets of his own, and we all know what happens to people who underestimate Will Graham… This is a really fun trip through some classic horror tropes, stylishly fusing a Hitchcockian vibe with supernatural elements as Will’s paranoia grows in the face of the Lecters’ strange behaviour and the threat of Jack hunting him down. It’s atmospheric, sexy, and thrilling – old-fashioned horror at its very best.

An American Empath in London by @legohanniballecter (MaddyHughes): In this (very slight) Sherlock crossover AU, Jack loans out Will to Scotland Yard in order to aid them in investigating a series of horrific murders involving Tory politicians (seeing as their normal consulting detective recently jumped off a roof…). Except here, Will hasn’t met Hannibal Lecter, not until he sits next to him on the plane to London, that is, though it doesn’t take long for the pair to become intimately acquainted. Yeah, ain’t no slow burn around here, and Will finds himself in a strange city, attempting to deal with a case that frustrates him, a police force that doesn’t understand him, and an intense, overwhelming attraction to a man he barely knows. Not to mention that Hannibal’s up to his usual tricks: murder, manipulation, and winding Will Graham up to see how he goes. Two years in the making, this densely-plotted, highly intelligent case fic also features some seriously intense Hannigram, with its trademark mix of sexual tension, blood and mind games turned up to the nth degree. I highly recommend giving it a shot – once I started, I found it nigh-on impossible to put down!

And Do Abominable Things With Grace by @thedancingwalrus-blog (The_Dancing_Walrus): I love and adore Pacific Rim, let’s get that out of the way. That said, it’s not exactly the subtlest movie ever made and I always kind of wished they’d done more to explore the concept of drifting. Well, wish granted and with Hannigram into the bargain in this fascinating crossover AU. Set sometime in s2, after Will’s mistrial but before his release, things diverge sharply from canon when Beverly and the FBI arrest Hannibal for his crimes. And then leave canon in the fucking dust when the first Kaiju arrives and Will and Hannibal are kidnapped by the government to be used as guinea pigs in the development of drift technology. Of course, it turns out that fusing the consciousnesses of two people like Will and Hannibal – who are pretty much inextricably bonded from their first glance anyway – has some interesting, and not altogether pleasant, side-effects. This is a genuinely stunning piece of work, playing with POVs and levels of consciousness to portray the invasive intimacy of being forcibly mind-melded with another person and written with a lyrical, experimental style that is both effective and highly memorable. It also has one of the most interesting, insightful depictions of the relationship between Hannibal and Will I’ve had the fortune to read – by turns sad, hopeful and endearing, and never less than utterly beautiful.

Caging the Beast by Vulcanmi: How many have us have begged pleaded wondered how things might have gone if Will had called off his Mizumono dinner plans with Jack and Hannibal? In this AU the stupid idiot our intrepid empath does just that, and, having realised that he doesn’t want to live in a world where Hannibal is behind bars, sets about constructing one in which he can tame the beast and put it in a cage of his own. His decision sets everybody on an unfamiliar path but while some things change (no Florentine jaunt for Bedelia this time), others just can’t be avoided (Mason still needs to be someone’s bacon, and Will and Hannibal still dance around each other like a pair of nervous teenagers). Or put off forever, as Will’s growing awareness of the nature of his feelings for Hannibal shows. Many Mizumono fix-its focus on the murder fam running off together and trying to avoid capture. This takes the opposite approach, keeping everybody in Baltimore with the inherent dangers and tensions that involves, extending the game between Will, Hannibal and Jack, even as the former two inch their way towards true Murder Husband status. It’s a fascinating reframing of canon, retaining many elements from s3 but with Will and Hannibal acting as a team and a family. I lost count of the number of times I sighed “If only…” while I was reading this – if you still dream of what could have been that rainy night in Baltimore, this is definitely the fic for you.

Yet Another Hannigram S1 AU (series) by @coloredink: Fans of intense, complex, drawn-out conversations between Will and Hannibal (which is… all of us, right?) will be in heaven with this two-part series set sometime post-Tobias Budge in s1. Both instalments see the boys thrust into close living quarters and exploring the powerful but confusing nature of their relationship. In and built a little house that we could live in, Will takes Hannibal up on the offer of using his vacation house for a week, on one condition: Hannibal comes with him. There follow seven days in which two solitary men begin to realise they might not want to be solitary anymore, and tentatively negotiate how that might work. By contrast, there’s nothing tentative in follow-up a tower to broadcast all our dreams, in which Will and Hannibal have to pretend to live together as a couple in order to draw out a serial killer. The pretence soon gives way to something else, but when you’re the Chesapeake Ripper, deciding you want a boyfriend comes with extra complications… This series is a beautiful riff on some favourite tropes, the second instalment in particular playing on the “fake date” with brilliant results. It also lets us see a charmingly domestic version of Hannigram, investing time and care in building up the relationship without sacrificing the dark and twisted aspects of their story. And really, does it get any better than domestic fluff with a bit of murder on the side? Nah, didn’t think so…

As ever, if there are bad links, or I’ve misattributed anything, let me know and I’ll fix it lickety-split. Happy reading, lovely fannibals!

[anothertruesentence]

55

1. tenderness 2. anticipation 3. optimism 4. intimacy 5. apprehension 6. wonder 7. awe 8. adoration 9. affection 10. delight 11. passion 12. love 13. certitude 14. reminiscence 15. adequacy 16. peace 17. belonging 18. turmoil 19. grief 20. restraint 21. loss 22. discomfort 23. uncanniness 24. ennui 25. defeat 26. puzzlement 27. fatigue 28. anguish 29. yearning 30. despair 31. indifference 32. apathy 33. relief 34. weariness 35. foreboding 36. emptiness 37. inconsequentiality 38. dread 39. pain 40. panic 41. fear 42. terror 43. horror 44. agony 45. vigilance 46. uncertainty 47. torment 48. hope 49. restlessness 50. calm 51. clarity 52. pride 53. power 54. worthiness 55. strength

1

tenderness

/ˈtɛndənəs/

noun

Feelings of deep affection.

Sensitivity to pain; soreness.

We come together, we leave. Between the opening and the closing door, we exist. What is lost in an impossible eternity stays in the infinite unknown. Yet when the lock clicks, there is a new real—in kisses that end, touches never to be repeated and truths incomprehensible in the realm of possibility and fiction.

2

anticipation

/antɪsɪˈpeɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

The feeling of expectation or prediction.

Music. The introduction in a composition of part of a chord which is about to follow in full.

To know someone, her past, present, future, fears and hopes: this is the terror of the blank page. You can’t write that much again, you say—know, feel and be that much again.

But her words will form yours and all else will follow. This is the start. And therein lies the fear and hope.

3

optimism

/ˈɒptɪmɪz(ə)m/

noun

Hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something.

Philosophy. The doctrine that this world is the best of all possible worlds.

Philosophy. The belief that good must ultimately prevail over evil in the universe.

The whisper of your voice, your touch, your warmth, and you, heard again after the sound. Again, then again, unexpected. And in its echo, I hear in me a whisper too.

Soft is the sound, like the strings starting a symphony.

4

intimacy

/ˈɪntɪməsi/

noun

Close familiarity or friendship.

Euphemistic. Sexual intercourse.

Closeness of observation or knowledge of a subject.

The voices in your head only ever speak to you, encasing vistas in your mind alone.

But we translate the voices and describe the vistas with every last word we know; we listen and imagine the very best we can. That is our bravest endeavour and greatest privilege, for as we sit alone, we touch.

5

apprehension

/aprɪˈhɛnʃ(ə)n/

noun

Anxiety or fear that something bad or unpleasant will happen.

Understanding; grasp.

Give her the blade.

It might become the axe that splinters your chest, the dagger twisted in your back. Or it might be the machete through the caging forests, the sickle of your future harvests, the sword that’ll finally slay the fiery dragons.

Give her your blade, for then she might unsheath hers for you.

6

wonder

/ˈwʌndə/

noun

A feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar.

A person or thing regarded as very good or remarkable.

It’s strange to feel each moment burst with so much but tally the little time there’s been.

It’s strange that worlds can meet so soon when demons are driven into introductions and a foot’s put in the door of the heart.

It’s strange how quickly shared secrets can bring a boundless future into clear view.

7

awe

/ɔː/

noun

A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.

Each day shared, each smile and tear and touch. Each is a flare fired into the void above. The first makes the first star. The rest follow. Unnoticed, a universe roars into being—giants and dwarves, comets and supernovae ablaze. Constellations connect them all, narrating your own cosmological tale of how something came from nothing.

8

adoration

/adəˈreɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

Deep love and respect.

Worship; veneration.

Look at her as she’s happy, her eyes smiling before her lips catch up. Look at her as she’s sad, her eyes empty of all but fear or fatigue. Look at her and see exactly how precious a person can be. Look more closely and see she sees the same when she looks at you.

9

affection

/əˈfɛkʃ(ə)n/

noun

A gentle feeling of fondness or liking.

Archaic. A condition or disease.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘What’s up?’

‘What do you want?’

These sounds get lost in the air between. I make them anyway, playing make-belief with meaning, hoping for some leap or leak.

In this difficulty lies a greater simplicity: I’ll never know all her world nor she mine and, so, our world is essence, distilled and pure.

10

delight

/dɪˈlʌɪt/

noun

Great pleasure.

A cause or source of great pleasure.

But do you know the corporeal soul?

It is in the smiles sparked by true joy, the eyes with innumerable tales to tell, the body that is home to the person. The beauty of the abstract is reflected in that of the material—neither masked by nor transcending.

Few have the chance to see it.

11

passion

/ˈpaʃ(ə)n/

noun

Strong and barely controllable emotion.

Intense sexual love.

(the Passion) The suffering and death of Jesus.

This is the energy that keeps the stars apart. We try to contain it—kindling kisses, cooling cigarettes, transforming it into songs and words on napkins. But from our bodies so finite it leaks out and up. Look hard into the telescope and you might just see it between the stars—fragile, eternal and infinite.

12

love

/lʌv/

noun

An intense feeling of deep affection.

A formula for ending an affectionate letter.

(in tennis, squash, and some other sports) a score of zero; nil.

We send starships, ramming galaxies to dust as separate worlds collide. We shove ourselves back together, one writhing body in defiance of raging gods. We make love to explosions in the sky, throbbing to the accompanying orchestra. We are word, myth and song. We say we’re specks, but in some moments we’re an everyday epic.

13

certitude

/ˈsəːtɪtjuːd/

noun

Absolute certainty or conviction that something is the case.

Something that someone firmly believes is true.

I don’t believe in past and future lives. I speak of neither ancient fate nor eternal destiny.

But I touch with the only body I own; my every thought’s the noblest human endeavour. If my stories stretch to infancy, that’s all of me. If I pledge you my life, I give you all I have.

14

reminiscence

/rɛmɪˈnɪs(ə)ns/

noun

The enjoyable recollection of past events.

A characteristic of one thing that is suggestive of another.

Paths cross, worlds blur,

glances roam, questions linger,

stories begin, pasts appear,

impressions unfold, interest stirs,

night falls, time meanders,

moments pass, resolve wavers,

distance holds, desire hovers,

courage sparks, walls shatter,

lips caress, fingers wander,

eyes meet, bodies shudder,

hope arises, minds wonder,

possibilities beckon, a future nears:

it all begins in the beginning.

15

adequacy

/ˈadɪkwəsi/

noun

The state of being satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity

Once in a blue moon, there comes a rare sort of person who makes you feel bigger than you’ve ever felt, that life could be bigger than it’s ever been, yet you’d give it all up for a single moment in which they would look at themselves and be able to see their own size.

16

peace

/piːs/

noun

Mental or emotional calm.

Freedom from disturbance; tranquillity.

A state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.

I met a girl who showed me the centre of the universe—a place of almost complete stillness, where all noise quietened to a hum. She did it again, and then again, each time with just the memory of her face. Someday, perhaps, the path there’ll be so well-trodden we might even call it home.

17

belonging

/bɪˈlɒŋɪŋ/

noun

An affinity for a place or situation.

From the sea she came and to the sea she will return. Meanwhile, the oceans call her by name and the rain whispers secrets. Beneath the glistening ripples, she dances with mermaids only she can see, breathing more deeply than she ever had in air, sinking into a world at once strange and intimately familiar.

18

turmoil

/ˈtəːmɔɪl/

noun

A state of great disturbance, confusion, or uncertainty.

They say love is hard work, but fighting’s easy, really.

Can you watch grenades go without diving on them though? Can you drop the lost limbs knowing they’re not the last to go? Can you reconcile the fragility and strength of what you defend, or your powerlessness and significance?

Now, these are the true battles.

19

grief

/ɡriːf/

noun

Intense sorrow, especially caused by someone's death.

Informal. Trouble or annoyance.

Some people are good at poker. They fold when they should, work for their wins. Each time they stand they leave nothing of themselves behind.

Some are no good at all. Each night they’re dragged off the table screaming from the crushing debt of all they’d bet but never once had been able to lose.

20

restraint

/rɪˈstreɪnt/

noun

Lack of emotion; self-control.

Understatement, especially of artistic expression.

A device which limits or prevents freedom of movement.

My words are measured, my voice steadied, my hands chained to myself.

But my mind—oh, my mind—runs free, with every bit of you my lips would ravage, with every word I would scream until you heard loud and clear everything I felt for you with every last bit of my stifled, beating heart.

21

loss

/lɒs/

noun

The feeling of grief after losing someone or something of value.

A person or thing that is badly missed when lost.

An amount of money lost by a business or organisation.

There is an ether of lost memories hanging thick around our world. In it are the blurred faces, the forgotten words, the life-changing events we can’t put in order. Each one we’d thought we would never forget; each one detaches and floats to join the rest. The ether binds us in and keeps us whole.

22

discomfort

/dɪsˈkʌmfət/

noun

Slight pain.

Worry or embarrassment.

My lipstick smiles at the lens, trying to reflect some of the joy in the smiles shone on me. I graduated when the cab pulled off and I fell apart; I’d got my distinctions in bed, my honours in words said true. But now, the mortarboard sits squarely on. And as they smile, I smile.

23

uncanniness

/ʌnˈkani/

noun

A feeling of strangeness or mystery, especially in an unsettling way.

(uncanny valley) the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the viewer.

I fear the uncanniness of memory.

Digital records resurrect a simulacrum of the past, at once real and not. People I’d been, lives I’d had—in abstract they’re mine. But there isn’t enough me to own the myriad detail at once, to expand my identity, extend my history to such bounds.

Herein lies the valley.

24

ennui

/ɒnˈwiː/

noun

A feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

I trod the path without an end, with a beginning I couldn’t remember. Stretches of sand swept towards the horizon—an unbroken line, a full circle. If I lay down I would forget which way was up, but I hadn’t bothered to try. Grain on grain, one by one, the world was made as such.

25

defeat

/dɪˈfiːt/

noun

A state of being overcome by adversity; demoralised.

Things fall apart, the centre holds slant. Between the glue and the trashcan lies the uncanny shipwreck in a bottle. A strange death fills the void with a million little pieces, expunging grief as they soak in it, full. The last cigarette is stubbed. Perhaps the tea leaves can only be read in the ashes.

26

puzzlement

/ˈpʌz(ə)lm(ə)nt/

noun

A feeling of confusion through lack of understanding.

A wonderful illusion: see the displacement in oscillating distance, and believe the hope in steady alternation. The part misdirects from the whole. This is magic, ancient and pure. The secret—hush—lies in the infinite infinitesimals in that empty hat. Suspend your disbelief.

Odd trick though, isn’t it, when the con and mark are one?

27

fatigue

/fəˈtiːɡ/

noun

Extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness.

A lessening in one's response to or enthusiasm for something, caused by overexposure.

(Fatigues) Menial non-military tasks performed by a soldier, sometimes as a punishment.

We can’t go on; we will go on. Tears dry at the recollection of a smile. A pin in the calendar fuels the intervening hours. Pushed by memory, pulled by hope, we are immortal. For the speck of hope looms into view and transforms into a new memory, leaving yet another fresh horizon of possibility.

28

anguish

/ˈaŋɡwɪʃ/

noun

Severe mental or physical pain or suffering.

Dreams get us through the days; dreams make them unbearable. From the radiance of hope, we must readjust our eyes to a darkness we once could navigate. Our heads are swollen with promise; now nothing fits. Our bodies have felt the possible; now nothing is enough. Dreams—they keep you afloat to burn you alive.

29

yearning

/ˈjəːnɪŋ/

noun

A feeling of intense longing for something.

Take me there where the sun shines hard and the snow falls soft, where mountains far too far to see fit on the map in hand, where each night falls completely asleep and each day wakes fully alive, where everything is just as it should be.

Take me there where I never have to leave.

30

despair

/dɪˈspɛː/

noun

The complete loss or absence of hope.

There’s another life I see, in which my mind is mine and I look myself in the eye, in which cigarettes and coffee taste of more than death, in which pain passes and I laugh more loudly than I scream, in which I am still and free.

Sometimes it seems it’s exactly that: another life.

31

indifference

/ɪnˈdɪf(ə)r(ə)ns/

noun

Lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.

Unimportance.

The art of losing is hard to master.

The art of replacing, though—

Going, walking. Being, sitting. Meals, food—drop the wordplay. An open heart, open eyes. What’s happiness but a smile? Love, faith, hope, life—how big are your words? How full is the glass?

The art of replacing—nothing to it.

32

apathy

/ˈapəθi/

noun

Lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.

Cheers to the infinite glass when everything else ends.

Cheers to the headaches and the relativity of pain.

Cheers to the words set free and the ones shut in.

Cheers to the darkness when every second’s one too many.

And cheers to allowing me a hand in the undoing of this life crumbling around me.

33

relief

/rɪˈliːf/

noun

A feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress.

Assistance given to those in special need or difficulty.

We spend hours and hours in days and days keeping in line, keeping things in check, keeping calm and carrying on.

And on and on until perhaps it’s no surprise we give it all up to the white flag of surrender—a pure and peaceful whiteness that expects, at last, nothing from us but defeat.

34

weariness

/ˈwɪərɪnɪs/

noun

Extreme tiredness; fatigue.

Reluctance to see or experience any more of something.

I walk along with my eyes half-shut, for the sun is too bright and the days too long. There is life with my lids at half-mast. Time softens, leaving just enough—not too much. I watch the vastness blur into a singular path, laughing at how I walked into this with my eyes wide open.

35

foreboding

/fɔːˈbəʊdɪŋ/

noun

A feeling that something bad will happen; fearful apprehension.

There is a fire in her. The more it burns, the darker it gets. For this flame takes and never gives, feeding its shadows with the surrounding glimmers. She fears its hunger; it grows nonetheless. Eyes open and blind, she watches every spark as the fire burns on in this new night, strong and black.

36

emptiness

/ˈɛm(p)tɪnəs/

noun

The feeling of having no value or purpose; futility.

The state of containing nothing.

There is nothing here tonight—nothing around me, nothing in me. To fill the space, the darkness takes shape, at once overwhelming and inviting. With it the silence sounds, an incessant piercing scream in one ear, a softly seductive whisper in the other.

They beckon me towards something.

Something is better than nothing, they say.

37

inconsequentiality

/ˌɪnkɒnsɪkwɛnʃɪˈalɪti/

noun

the feeling of being unimportant or insignificant.

Sometimes the bears do not wake up when the seasons warm; sometimes the salmon float bloated the wrong way downstream. We fight, we endure, we try, we persist—but for some in vain amidst the crimson teeth and claws of nature. One could lose one’s all, but life lives on immortal, the dead few insignificant.

38

dread

/drɛd/

noun

Great fear or apprehension.

Predators omnipresent, prey immortal, that same knife, that old kiss—dreams dance in the shadow of sense. Light flashes; worlds crack apart. The fear, the relief, the desire, the loss—they stand still in the middle, laughing at the borders you desperately draw between reality and fiction.

The clock ticks until your eyes shut again.

39

pain

/peɪn/

noun

Mental suffering or distress.

Highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury.

(pains) Great care or trouble.

There often comes a day that is just an endless night, when the dry air chokes you and the emptiness inside races. You can’t quite remember who you are, much less who you want to be—the present is all there is. And so you wait, in the terrible now, until the endless night ends.

40

panic

/ˈpanɪk/

noun

Sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.

Informal. A frenzied hurry to do something.

You put it in; you take it out. It’s silly, you concur, but the true absurdity is that you’re scrambling to fill a void that’ll never take shape while gasping to erase a mess that cannot leave, wanting it all in but all out, wanting to be in it yet always, always, always wanting out.

41

fear

/fɪə/

noun

An unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm.

Archaic. A mixed feeling of dread and reverence.

Your greatest fear isn’t spiders, clowns or heights, but to lose control of your mind—if its thoughts are not just your own, if it speaks both to and as yourself. Divided, what do you defend?

This, more than anything, will feast on your insides, screeching with laughter as you plummet all the way down.

42

terror

/ˈtɛrə/

noun

Extreme fear.

The use of extreme fear to intimidate people; terrorism.

The nights are too long for a single mind. The lights are too bright, but the dark is too dark when you shut your eyes. There is nowhere to go but here, nothing to do but be. When all else sleeps, it is just you alone—with, in and against the entirety of your self.

43

horror

/ˈhɒrə/

noun

An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.

A literary or film genre concerned with arousing feelings of horror.

We light candles to breach the night; it rouses instead, refreshed. We sing and dance because we’re told it’s what scares off the beast; it purrs along with every note. We hide; it finds. We run; it waits for our return.

We look it in the eye, and all it does is smile right back.

44

agony

/ˈaɡəni/

noun

Extreme physical or mental suffering.

The final stages of a difficult or painful death.

It’s still a surprise when it appears, although you’ve never forgotten it’s never gone. Its eyes gleam in the darkest nights. Its scent makes up the air. Its claws draw stale blood. It pins you down. It lets you up. Battles are lost and battles are won but the war is the circle of life.

45

vigilance

/ˈvɪdʒɪl(ə)ns/

noun

The state of keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties.

You know it’s following you—no need to look. You can see the darkening shadows, hear each solid step. At times limping, at times charging, but never is it left behind. When it does catch up, stop and fight. Give it all you’ve got, for in this game, in its world, they play for keeps.

46

uncertainty

/ʌnˈsəːt(ə)nti/

noun

The feeling of not being completely sure of something.

I learn that things get better. I learn that dreams come true. I do what I am taught, I look down the rabbit hole, across the valley and through the sands of time, and I put one foot in front of another as I remember to remember to believe.

But what if they are wrong?

47

torment

/ˈtɔːmɛnt/

noun

Severe physical or mental suffering.

All around you are voices on voices, words after words, noise in noise. Air is sound. Each breath chokes, but each breath is followed by another. This is the unending sound of life, a scream that ends only at the end of time itself.

All we need, at times, is simply a moment of silence.

48

hope

/həʊp/

noun

A feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.

Grounds for believing that something good may happen.

A person or thing that may help or save someone.

They teach us about the immutable, indivisible soul. We learn to shave ours down to size, or lose chunks of them on impact. But we gather every last fragment, for one day there will be enough space for souls like those in the legends, and we will reconstruct the ruins with our pocketfuls of sawdust.

49

restlessness

/ˈrɛstləsnəs/

noun

The inability to rest or relax as a result of anxiety or boredom.

I am the quivering singularity before the bang. I am the very last point before the tipping. I am ready, ready for everything. I get closer, closer, and closer still.

I never reach it.

And so here I am—straining, bursting, trembling on the edge of all I can see, but absolutely, absolutely cannot touch.

50

calm

/kɑːm/

noun

The absence of strong emotions.

The absence of violent activity in a place.

The absence of wind.

Around and around I spin, a toppling ellipse of neon sounds and blaring lights. It’s too loud, far too loud. Faster and faster I spin, brighter and louder, higher and bigger, on and on until—finally—I take in a breath. The air comes, dragging, slowing, stopping.

And then, at last, I let it out.

51

clarity

/ˈklarɪti/

noun

The quality of being coherent and intelligible.

The quality of transparency or purity.

The quality of being easy to see or hear; sharpness of image or sound.

In some moments, everything dawns into clarity.

The leaves startlingly green, greener than the grey I had seen as green. The song playing again, but sound has become music, thumping and soaring. Each taste dancing on my tongue, with the revelation that food has more than form.

In these moments, I feel—and am—alive.

52

pride

/prʌɪd/

noun

A feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from achievement, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.

Literary. The best state of something; the prime.

Look at any Roman ruin. Your eyes will see past the crumbling pillars, for you’ll see Rome, glorious and whole.

Where is the shame, then, in the ruined?

Everything that has broken, spoiled and vanished once had been. And as long as you see them—truly see them—they are and always proudly will be.

53

power

/ˈpaʊə/

noun

Great strength.

The ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way.

She bristles her mane. She bares her teeth. She is lion, she says. But she doesn’t see her tracks indelible, her eyes gleaming square against the dark, her spine straight amidst others crouching, her bloody wounds more triumphant than spotless pelts. Yet, this is the true roar of her spirit—brave, strong and forever pure.

54

worthiness

/əˈstaʊndmənt/

noun

The quality of being good enough.

The quality of deserving attention or respect.

How many memories do I have? The ones remembered, the ones forgotten?

The things I have done, places I have been, people I have known—they are assembled from every thought I have carried, every image I have held, every sensation I have felt.

In infinitesimal detail, they create the stunning singularity of the “I”.

55

strength

/strɛŋkθ/

noun

The capacity to withstand great force or pressure.

A good or beneficial quality or attribute of a person or thing.

The number of people comprising a group, typically a team or army.

No, I will not bend, or yield, or disappear.

For while I am but a speck in the universe, my world revolves around me, and from there, it begins. When all else is broken or lost, what is left is inviolable: what I choose, what I believe, what I think—and therefore, who I am.

[swipestream]

Q&A with Richard Cain

I took a dive into CH’s back catalog and came up with Richard Cain’s God Hates Me. I remember Vox featured it earlier in the year and though the accompanying text and review highlights made it sound good, I could never get past the cover but I’m glad I gave the book a chance. This really is a case of “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. 

  When it comes to supernatural fiction I don’t enjoy cheap and gruesome thrills and concentrate on the underlying theological background; think the opening of The Exorcist  at an archaeological site in Iraq over the famous “pea soup” scene. Well, Richard Cain has created an intriguing backstory with an unique story line featuring a demon seeking redemption. Unlike The Exorcist, Cain’s book is humorous, so don’t expect a depressing or overly violent read. The demons know their time before judgement is limited and they pass the time in causing as much mischief as they can. If you are going to suffer for eternity you might as well get your money’s worth. Another aspect that comes out is the ennui many demons suffer as they await their fate. Atrocities and inflicting pain can only remain interesting for so long and many demons are heavily involved in hobbies such as running historical reenactments in haunted houses and we meet some that take their LARPing as aliens so seriously they can only be described as demonic otaku. 

  For the dudes that can’t get over the cover we discuss Richard Cain’s next book in the Q&A which he promises will have a cover easier on hetro male eyes. I don’t have a release date yet but it should be soon and I’ll update this post when I get the word.

  Q&A on the next page.

Scott Cole: I have to admit I wasn’t expecting much from God Hates Me, maybe the cover threw me off (more on that later) but it was an enjoyable read and the story line is definitely unique…

  Richard Cain: Thank you. Some argue that the demon/angel thing is overdone. It’s not. Like communism, it’s simply never been done right – until now. If you’re expecting Frank Peretti – don’t. He missed the chance for humor in the dark lives of the damned. In God Hates Me, we meet Malach, a put-upon demon unjustly kicked out of heaven, leaving his unfinished rock garden behind. Now he’s stuck in the Kingdom of Darkness, dealing with Nephilim, working for Moloch and having to put up with LARPing demons in UFOs. It’s a sad, sad life for a misplaced angel. To make himself feel better, he possesses random and forces them to tell his story to anyone who will listen. Including Tinder dates.

    SC: Where did you get the idea to write about a demon seeking redemption?

  RC: I am friends with an exorcist and she hooks me up with the juicy stuff. “Touched by an Angel” ain’t the way it works. Demons are here and they want to party before they hit the flames – except for Malach, who just wants to get back into Heaven. On his own terms, of course.

    SC: The demon mentions portals between the physical and spiritual realms which are actually created by humans (e.g. blasphemy, sacrifices, sites where atrocities have taken place). Human souls can’t pass through the portal because they are tied to their physical bodies but entities from the spiritual realm are free to cross over. What does your exorcist friend report as the most likely avenues of possession?

  RC: She’s told me that demons hang out where horrible things have taken place. Lunatic asylums, old human sacrifice sites, etc. If someone has a horrible event in their life, that can be a point where a demon jumps in and makes himself at home. If you’ve ever had the hair stand up on your arms when you’re walking through the DMV, you know the feeling.

    SC: What can one do to help prevent interaction with demons?

  RC: Don’t play around with the occult. Burning witches is always a good idea. Interacting with the spiritual realm is that it is like swimming in the ocean. You are out of your element, with no protection and do not knows what lurks beneath the surface. In fact, you are at the mercy of any shark that decides to come out of the depths and take a bite out of you. There are protections, of course, but don’t play in their field. I’ve seen a guy go from a quiet drunk to a ranting madman when I mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. It was like someone grabbed the strings of a puppet and spoke through his mouth. Even if you think you can deal with them and say the right things, if you’re not allied to the Kingdom of Light, they may strip you naked and beat you senseless.

  SC: Let’s talk about the cover. I went on a trip recently and had the book loaded on my AMZN Fire device. When I went to read in the airport lounge or on the airplane I noticed a couple of funny looks when my seatmates would see the romance novel style of cover with the bare chested model on the front. Not sure if the cover is congruent with the story?

  RC: Sexual insecurity is a sign of demon possession. Since God Hates Me is rather like CS Lewis meets Douglas Adams, The Supreme Dark Lord naturally decided to give it a lurid homoerotic romance cover. This represents three standard deviations of cover design conceptuality. It’s okay, though. My next book features a scantily clad female on the cover.

    SC: Details, please, about your next book?

  RC: My upcoming novel Vessel of Venus tells the story of a hopelessly gamma IT professional who discovers a cheesy sorcery app which grants him some strange abilities. He also has a genetic secret which makes him a person of great interest to ambassadors from the long-dead planet Venus. His quest to hone his occult powers and fight global warming as a Venusian ambassador turns into a trainwreck thanks to his possessed girlfriend and his own neuroticism. It’s like Alpha Game: The Novel, except with aliens. And a demonic locust named Timmy.

    SC: Does Vessel of Venus tie into the God Hates Me story line?

  RC: Somewhat. Both stories are in the same universe but the second story stands alone.

  SC: I’m looking forward to it.

  RC: It’s 666 times better than the first one. And the first one was damned good.

  S

C: Why it is better?

  RC: God Hates Me was my debut novel. Since writing it two years ago, I’ve been honing my pen on other writing projects and deliberately sharpening my writing skills by studying pulp authors as well as writing theory. I’ve easily written 500,000 words in between the time I wrote the first book and finished the second book. Readers will notice the difference. If you liked the first one, you’ll like this one even better.

  SC:

Talking about writers, who do you read on a regular basis?

  RC: On the non-fiction front, Dr. Michael Heiser’s theological writing was quite helpful. As for fiction, two years ago I read through all the works of Lovecraft. I also read the first two Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Out loud, to my tank of poisonous toads. They weren’t sure about the anthropomorphic apes at first but still got into the story. G.D. Stark’s Wardog novels are a very good read, although he needs more demons. I also finished reading John C. Wright’s Count to A Trillion series recently – amazing concepts, which he carries over into Superluminary. I’m waiting expectantly for the second half of Vox’s A Sea of Skulls but have entertained myself during the wait by reading all the Arkhaven and Dark Legion comic book titles.

  SC: Thanks for your time and good luck with the new release.

Q&A with Richard Cain published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[goldiecox34]

Macabre Melodies...Haunted harmonics...Creepy crescendos...

A lotta alliteration

It's an alternative Halloween playlist! 👻

 I often describe myself as a plainclothes Goth. I know the ennui, I feel the gloom, it’s just that I’ve opted for a slightly lower maintenance wardrobe. As such, I await the arrival of autumn’s mellow fruitfulness and accompanying mists each year with considerable anticipation. The russet foliage and plummeting temperatures signalling clearly that Halloween is almost upon us.

Yes, Halloween, that absurdist, heavily corporatised pagan harvest festival we all know and love. A time of year when it’s traditionally said that the gap between the realms of the dead and the living narrows to its thinnest slither and, in more contemporary terms, the time when both children and adults can express their inner ghoul, indulging their lust for macabre theatrics and processed sugars.

Yet, no matter how shallow and materialistic the holiday becomes, Halloween will always have a place in my heart. The moonlit boozing, extravagant costumes, the preponderance of men in eye liner, the unbridled freedom of expression, all happening ‘neath an acrid cloud of classic Goth tracks and other dark, synth driven ballads of an 1980’s vintage.    Songs like Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘Killing Moon’, Siouxie’s 'Spellbound’… or almost anything by the Cure, all heavy scented with incense and festooned in cobwebs and romance.

  But can we expand the typical Halloween playlist beyond Goth, New Wave and the occasional blast of the Monster Mash? I attest that there are unexpectedly ghoulish numbers in almost every genre!

Below are 10 of my picks for your perusal!

1. Maud Gone - Car Seat Headrest.   With its dusty organ shuffle, love sick lyrics and hollow, reverb drenched vocals this track comes off as a haunted slow dance at a zombie prom. 'I know there’s a full moon every night, and when I dress in black it snows white’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-h7j32uSk 2. Angie Baby -Helen Reddy   This number may come off about as 70’s smooth and sickly sweet as a bowl of butterscotch Angel Delight but don’t be fooled, the dated orchestrations belie a seriously creepy tale of a mentally challenged girl who may not be quite as sweet and defenceless as we think…  'It’s so nice to be insane… No one asks you to explain’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u8mGsis9nNo

3. Stinking Cloud - Thee Oh Sees  There are quite literally dozens of Thee Oh Sees tracks eligible for this list based on creepy title points alone… but the charmingly named ‘Stinking Cloud’ wins out for me with its fatalistic message hidden in its carnivalesque arrangement and demented sing song melody. 'But it’s dead, dead, dead to the top of its head… But we’re dead, dead, dead as I’ve already said…’     Okay think we’re getting the picture mate… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PRRaTHVvR_Y 4. Tenebre remix 1982 - Goblin  As the indisputable Kings of the 1970’s horror sound track, no Halloween play list would be complete without throwing a track by Italian Prog creepers, Goblin in the mix.

Tenebre is a demonic floor filler, as terrifying as it is funky!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s_aejM_HEy0

5. Down by the River - PJ Harvey  This slinky number released in 1995 rides a lazy river of soft distortion and slithering strings that sound somewhere between sumptuous and nauseating.

The songs catching tune lures us in as Peej recounts a charming tale of infanticide by drowning. 'Little fish big fish swimming in the water’ 'Come back here man give me my daughter’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lbq4G1TjKYg 6. Long pig. Perfume genius  With a synth line straight out of the Dawn of the Dead series, Perfume Genius beckons us into some disquieting territory on Long Pig (reportedly a Maori term for human flesh, just FYI).

His fey boyish voice repeating the baffling phrase: 'Long pig We buried the meat for Mama’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=14b8dVUdgCE

7. Get out of my House! -Kate Bush  The final track from Kate’s experimental and somewhat inaccessible 4th album sees an increasing desperate woman try to defend her house from unknown demonic intruders.  The drama takes place over a din of slamming doors as Kate’s plainly mental vocal lines overlap and compete with one another for space as she plays every character in the tale herself, including but not limited to the terrified protagonist, the would be intruder, a French concierge and possibly the house itself!?

Things come to a head when she starts to aggressively bray like a possessed donkey…

Enough said! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aMDgvxbsvPw 8. Dark night of the Soul - Sparklehorse feat David Lynch As horrifying a sonic result as you’d expect from the meeting of Mark Linkous’ and David Lynch’s beautifully cracked minds! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wbtUAlFN8po

9. Excitable boy - Warren Zevon Yes… Zevon’s track 'Werewolves of London’ may seem a more obvious choice for the season, but I try my best not to do obvious.  'Excitable boy’ the tale of a dangerous psychopath whose deranged and violent behaviour is continually ignored and put down to 'boys will be boys’ hijinx.  The track’s pitch black humour and ear worm melody make this a Halloween classic you didn’t know you needed in your life. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4-pexSVWzM

10. A Night Like This -The Cure.  Okay enough of my bullshit… Time at last for an actual classic. The Cure’s ’ 'A Night Like This’ is for my money one of the greatest songs of the eighties. Swooning, dark and velvety not to mention stuffed to the gills with melodrama and romantic tension.

I can think of no better song to sum up the peculiar beauty of Halloween!  'It goes dark It goes darker still…’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KE1nu67-U2I

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