#it's so true that the worst sin something in fiction can commit is to be boring lol

[vaguely-concerned]

there are certainly serious things to say and analysis to be made about the tired queen in snow white-ass female fear of aging and losing your beauty as catalysts for evil tropes zara renata is evoking, as well as the treatment of her still-naked body as an object in the post mortem interrogation scene by both the camera and the characters. HOWEVER. personally and with my heart not my brain I forgive it wholeheartedly because there's just something special, something so incredibly fun and campy, both about her horrific literal blood bath and about a character who'll coyly tell you to wait here she'll just slip into something a little more... comfortable😏. and then while keeping hard eye contact with you she slips out of her skin entirely like it's a strapless dress and stands there in her full glistening subcutaneous glory smirking at you. her body isn't a temple it's a slaughterhouse. well. for you. but that's a price she's willing to pay :) ianthe tridentarius behaviour (laudatory)

(to be real for a moment it probably helps a lot that there are plenty of other female villains in the game who aren't presented with a sexual or appearance-focused angle at all. well. not an intentional one at least. ghilan'nain will always do to certain people what she does but that's not the design intention or priority lol. having a zara does not feel as weird when you also have a johanna hezenkoss running around just living her best unlife and doing her thing)

[adashulaz]

Voltron Hazbin Hotel AU

Cw for mentions of mūrdēr, sū1c1de, transph0b1a, arranged marriages while one is still pretty young(like 17) and the other is old asf(like 28), also religious psychosis ig since James does start to think he's hearing God.

Background ig, Keith takes the place of Adam while James takes the place of Lute.

Don't expect historical accuracy, this is fictional and I don't wanna have to write do a bunch of research and write about the weird stuff they probably did back then.

James is a trans guy from the 1800s(I think you can see where this is going) so due to this, he's very deep in the closet. He was always told that being trans or anything like that is wrong, a sin. So he pushed it into a chest and buried it six feet deep and ended up marrying some guy while still young due to his parents wanting it to happen. So after a few years of marriage, James is now 19 and his husband is 30, they have two children.

And it's all going well, James is being treated well by his husband(he's just ignored) and the children are healthy. But it all goes downhill when James swears that God is talking to him. It's not something that starts off strong, it starts off small like hearing someone call out his name. Then it slowly builds into hearing full conversations being had around him that are about him. And it's all the same thing, "He should kill his husband and children, get rid of them". It slowly started to drive James mad, making him seem both paranoid and hysterical. But he tried to fix it by going to the Chruch and confessing his madness to the priest. The priest didn't believe it was God but instead the Devil trying to convince James to sin. So obviously the priest told James to pray for strength, to not let the Devil win.

But James wasn't strong enough(at least that's how he saw it for the longest time), he couldn't get the Devil to leave him alone. So James ended up giving in, he ended up fulfilling the wishes of the Devil. He waited until it was late, his husband and children asleep before making his move. He took a pillow and held over the face of the newborn, used a hammer for the toddler, and used a knife for his husband. Then he set his own home on fire and stayed inside when he realized what he did.

To say James was surprised to end up in Heaven would be an understatement, he committed the worst kind of sin and not only that, he gave into the wishes of the Devil. But the angel before him only told him it wasn't true, telling him that while he did sin, it wasn't his fault. James didn't believe the angel but didn't argue, this is where he ends up meeting Keith.

Keith didn't really seem to care what James did to his husband and children. The man also didn't even seem to care about James that much in general. But that ended up changing with James joined the Exorcists and ended up being one of the best ones there. So James ended up as Keith's second in command after awhile. And during this time, James learned that his existence wasn't a sin so yk he ends up coming out.

I'll probably expand upon this if I ever turn it into a fic.

[mdhwrites]

The Problem With the Harem Childhood Love

"I met this girl a decade ago and she changed how I viewed everything. We only knew each other for a single day but I know she's the one."

"Oh, so you two are easily going to have the most chemistry of anyone in your own story if you were to ever meet, right?"

"Why would we need that? I've already made my mind up a decade ago that I love her. So long as I say that, I can get with her at any time."

And then I start staring at the writer across from me until they finally leave because of the cardinal sin they have committed: Writing while assuming the ending.

Let me elaborate: It's actually a good thing for most stories to know what their ending is. It allows for better narrative planning and build up so that each block of your story can build on one another. Foreshadowing is only possible by knowing what plot points are coming up. Some writers can go by the seat of their pants and plan on the fly like the late Akira Toriyama and still have something coherent but it is usually considered better for a narratives pacing to know what it is.

This isn't about that though. It is when a writer knows what is coming and assumes it as self evident. This is almost always a bad thing to do because if you assume something is self evident, you'll put less narrative work into justifying it. You get this a lot when a character seems to only know something because the author says they do or they run off to a specific place without any real reason because the writer either thinks that's already been justified or because they just need that to happen for the sake of the plot.

Romance is the genre where this problem is at its worst with a pretty clear lead over most other genres. This is mostly due to two elements: Genre and the 'nature of love'.

Let's tackle the second one first since genre is going to come up more importantly with this specific trope. Love is seen oftentimes as mysterious and essentially impossible to explain. We fall in love. We slip into love. We find our soulmate. Many forms of romantic literature doesn't frame love as a choice but as an inevitability which isn't actually a bad thing. It's part of the appeal. Part of why Hallmark movies are as popular as they are is because the idea of one day having someone crash into your life, fill you with what most consider to be the best feeling in existence and change your life for the better is pretty damn attractive.

If you have watched a Hallmark movie though, you will often look at one half of that pairing and go "Why the hell are you interested in this person?" I've literally been told off in the past for analyzing why a character loves another character (positively even btw which made the reaction incredibly confusing for me) because it's like... Love man. You don't gotta explain it. If they say they're in love, they're in love!

Yes, that is undeniably how reality works but this isn't talking about reality. It's talking about fiction. In fiction, characters are theoretically supposed to have motivations and personalities and if you never sell your audience on why your two romantic leads would theoretically want to grow closer with the other one, besides lust, then it's not going to be a truly engaging romance. You don't even have to interrogate it that hard. We have tried and true ship dynamics for a reason to help with this because how those dynamics play off of each other commonly showcases why they would like each other. That doesn't mean you can just present the ship dynamic either but it can help give you a proper baseline to work from.

Second: Genre. You're reading a romance story so of course the main two characters are going to get together. If the story is not about that then you're not writing a romance. That mindset of it being a genre necessity and a foregone conclusion is already a death sentence for a lot of romance works. After all, they're together, they're your leads, you had them blush a couple times around each other, jobs done, right?

WRONG! It is still your job as a writer to sell us that they got there naturally and believably. There's a reason this is a GENRE. Part of why romantic subplots suck in so many things is because romance is seen as this thing you can just throw in a story easily and then walk away from because you said it happened so it did. Love is such a complex topic, and the process of falling in it so compelling and powerful (or if you're even braver, the process of dealing with those feeling after the confession) that it can carry a story entirely on its own. This is also because love is such a powerful emotion, terrifying in that strength and its mystery, and a relationship such a big commitment that someone actually deciding to go through with either is a genuinely big deal. There's lots of people out there, and not just those who are aromantic, who don't understand why we fall in love because it's absolutely fucking terrifying and you lose a lot just to gain a romantic partner, at least if you look at it derivatively.

BUT! What if you could write yourself an out of all of this complexity? Better yet, what if this out could allow you to expand your cast to a frankly ludicrous degree for a romance story while still making who wins make narrative sense? How glorious would it be if you could make the final question not "Who does the main character like most," but instead "Who is the one he was destined to be with?"

Enter the trope at the top of this blog. Harem stories are frankly a touch terrifying to write. As someone who has done three different erotic takes on the genre, I have fucked up one of three SPECTACULARLY and my other two are taking cheats of their own to get around some of the ensemble problems of a harem. Because this blog is already going long, I won't get into hard why harem writing is difficult or why its protagonists are the way they are here but uh... Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there and it's not all for wish fulfillment. I mean, it's a genre with a lot of wish fulfillment too but there's still other reasons behind it.

The core thing that makes them a struggle though is that time is your explicit enemy. An ensemble cast always consumes time in a way that few are always ready to deal with. You may want five main characters but you may quickly realize that only three are any good or that to make all five good, you're going to need add another season to your show, volume to your manga, etc. like that because expanding on each character, especially equally, is a big ask. Again, romance as a genre normally deals with only two main characters for a reason. The question of falling in love is bad enough when you have to sell a relationship with one character, let alone three or more. Even worse if they're all supposed to be seen as equally valid options.

So how do you pick one over the rest? Well, if you're not a coward, you make them into a polycule but as that's not all that socially acceptable and not a lot of big harem works have gone that route, you aren't going to see that option too often. Instead, you need a final plot beat/arc that will make it crystal clear who the choice is and why.

And what better way to do that than with some predestination!? Yeah, this trope actually has a crap ton of problems. The fact that people change from when they were kids, the fact that promises made when young should not define your entire life, etc. like that. That all can be said to be like saying that implying a high school romance will be forever is stupid though. That you're already clearly against the genre or the romanticization of love and so your opinion is skewed.

That's why my complaint is the one it is. See, this sort of excuse makes it so you can say that one of the girls in a harem was always the one and it's in character and fuck EVERYTHING up in the process. After all, with such a... profound eye roll explanation as this, why do you need to build their relationship? You have two to four other girls, potentially even more, to explore, tease and string along until finally getting with the one left out. They don't need chemistry even more than a normal romantic couple because of this singular moment in the past.

And if you, as a writer, actually believe that, you deserve to be smacked. All you're going to do is piss off essentially your ENTIRE audience who got invested in these other characters, who you told them through narrative to care about and get invested in, because the one they were told didn't matter was actually the one they should have been watching out for. Even if it's explicitly clear from go who it is, if your entire audience hates them then they're still going to throw away your story because of the bad taste the last bite leaves because you somehow chose the worst member in your roster to be the one that deserves the happy ending while the rest can eat shit.

And the reasonable argument against this complaint is that if you're that invested in the rest, the author still succeeded. It's the journey that matters, not the destination, right? Well... Actually, romance is the genre where that is the least true. It's why romance stories end with implying a happily ever after because treating these two that you've come to know and care about as just a school yard fling makes all those sweet moments, all that care and growth, seem meaningless and cheap. Like it was all for naught, especially because of how desirable love is for most people and how devastating heart break can be.

So if you can't even go "At least one of the ones that deserved it got their happy ending" then it can make all those moments of harem fun just feel all the more painful. Like the hand of the author is holding a knife to your back, waiting to betray you at any second. That is a feeling that will leave very few in an audience happy, at least if they genuinely care about the characters and romances you've written.

And all because the writer assumed their brilliant excuse was all it would take to make you agree that their ending made sense.

======+++++======

This blog is brought to you today by Quintessential Quintuplets, an anime I couldn't finish because while I don't watch much harem stuff, I could still clearly see that every girl who deserved a happy ending in that show wasn't going to get it, even before being told who got with the MC in the end. It's also somewhat brought to you by me working on the concept of a harem story and my musings on some of its specific tropes. Again, I could do several blogs on it frankly. Shocking, I know, that the romance writer has thoughts on romance genres.

(Also, if you're more immune to this problem than I am, Quintessential Quintuplets is worth your time. It's not perfect but I did find the cast compelling and charming enough to get worked up about them and there are some really smart narrative choices made along the way.)

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[yojeongin]

change in you | l.jn

→ turned vampire!lee jeno x vampire queen!reader

synopsis: centuries of slumber can do much to a hungry queen, what else than to take it out on the one who woke you up?

genre: vampire au, queen of the damned au, georgian era/historical au, smut, horror (?)

warning(s): ADULTS ONLY, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT! dom/sub/switch dynamic, corruption, biting, blood/blood letting/drinking, oral (m + f receiving), deepthroating, very rough sex, unprotected sex, semi size kink, cock bulge, cum swallowing, creampie, fingering, religious guilt/mentions of religion, mentions of abusive parents, death (not mcs)

wc: 11.4k+ || ao3

© 2021 YOJEONGIN all rights reserved — please do not translate, take, nor repost my works on other social media’s. this is my ONLY writing platform.

disclaimer: this is purely fictional; in no way am I condoning this behavior, trying to offend anyone, nor is it meant to place such image on the idol. read at your own discretion.

song(s): change (in the house of flies), digital bath—deftones | if I was your vampire—marilyn manson | strangers—the rose | little dark age—mgmt

an: happy halloween here's my gift and my contribution for not giving jeno smut in air bag and for being gone for nearly 2 years. also I wrote this before the 127 vampire agenda so enjoy vampire jeno

Fear. 

Jeno had always been brought up to learn that God was the only one he should fear. That God was the only one to dictate what would happen if he was to sin. 

His first encounter with God’s wrath was when he had grown to be considered both a man and a child. Jeno didn’t know much about the world but he did know about the word of God from his religious mother who spent the majority of his life forcing them down his throat until he was able to attend school.

Even when he wasn’t in school and his studies were done, she’d drag the boy to the chapel and continue to teach him about the word of God over and over again until he wept once she forced sins he hadn’t committed out of his bloodied mouth from the slaps she’d given him when he denied any.

His first encounter came through the actions of his father’s own sins. As he always did, the boy had walked to the chapel down the road from school. Mother had engraved into his head that after learning the subjects at hand, especially science– he was to pray for forgiveness if he was to believe all those ‘zannies’ [1] told him to.

And so as he crossed the worn-down wooden doors and up the aisle to the marble altar table in which he laid his lit candle as an offering, the boy made his way down the steps, leaning down on a pew. 

Tongue tied as he looked up at the crucifix, glaring down at him for all his thoughts— Jeno closed his eyes hoping that would help him let out what he was conditioned to believe were sins. 

His feeble fingers overlapped to create a cross with his thumb and index, bringing them to his forehead, chest, left and right shoulder, just to finish at his trembling lips. “ In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sanсti… ” [2]

Jeno lowered his head, struggling to bring words out of his mouth and despite knowing he had to confess with a priest, he opted to leave it up to God himself. His ‘sins’ were nothing but guilt embedded by his mother but that same guilt was the reason he was here.

He forced it out, even if they weren’t true— Jeno forced out sins that his brain created and made him believe he did. This was the worst part of prayer, knowing he didn’t do anything but making himself feel worse for not doing anything.

But because of that guilt, his true sin came to flourish that same moment. Moans of pleasure rung inside his ears. They were soft mewls at first but as he grew concerned, they became louder to let him know they were real and not just his sinful creations. 

He didn’t know what caused them, never in his life had he heard something so unearthly but captivating. He had heard of mermaids who sung their hypnotizing songs at bay and lured fishermen in just to devour them once the men were finally enchanted. He figured this was the same sound the mermaids made but he didn’t think it was quite as beautiful as the men had described.

The louder they got the more of a screech it sounded like. His knees tore away from the worn-out leather of the pew, dusting off whatever dust particles stuck to his breeches. He felt his knees ache the moment he extended them but that minimum amount of pain was not compared to the following.

He looked around, the chapel was empty and the crucifix looked at him more angry than minutes before as if it had now dictated what would happen to him in the next few minutes. The gold embedded decorations around it shining bright despite the dim lighting within, the only illumination coming from the lit candles all left as offerings or thanks for the completed miracles.

Jeno’s steps echoed through the building just like the moans they chased. He figured they came from outside the chapel and back to the nun quarters given every door inside were open and showed no sign of human beings. 

With the realization that no one was around, Jeno had changed his thought of mermaids and into the paranormal. He had heard stories of women dying inside the chapel. Most of the time those abandoned by their lovers in the altar and opting to take their life rather than facing the mockery of the people knowing they’d be labeled ‘unlovable’ which would only push away future prospects.

Now he figured those wails and moans came from their ghosts, trying to scare him for lying about his sins and for the torment he put himself through. His body shook now, blood ran cold across the moment he stepped out of the chapel from the back into the nun’s courtyard.

It was empty, abandoned to be exact. No one in sight to tell him to get out and it scared him more than the wails now. He knew the unprivileged children had been taken on a trip to the mountains by the nun’s but he didn’t think all of them would be gone. 

He was right of course, as he walked further down the courtyard and into the last few rooms, Jeno heard the moans louder than ever. He had found the location of his terrors and as he leaned in closer to decipher if it was real or a product of the ghosts; he heard a familiar voice.

Jeno heard the raspy deep voice of a man in there along the loud wails. It was so familiar, painfully so. He heard how it cooed at the moaning person to take it like they always do. In gratitude the moaning outlet hummed, responding with a nasty high pitched “Always…” 

Upon hearing the words he hears daily: “—Sweet Petunia!” Jeno burst open the door, bells loudly ringing inside his head, making his eyes run from side to side in a matter of insanity. The people behind the doors, laying on bed in a position he didn’t know but could feel was wrong.

“Father!...” Jeno exclaimed, His lip quivering at the scene in front of him. Jeno couldn’t say if this was wrong or right but he knew what sin looked like and this felt like a major sin. In a matter of seconds, his father had removed his naked figure from Sister Merida, dressing himself quickly. The young girl rushed to cover herself with the blanket underneath her as the boy tried his best not to stare at her for long. There he committed yet another sin.

She wasn’t much older than him, only a few years but his father was a ragged old hag pushing 60 and for him to be messing around with a young woman along being married to the neurotic person his mother was— Jeno had finally known how much of a disgusting sinner his father was. 

Jeno learned much that day. He finally learnt what ‘ thou shall not commit adultery ’ meant in the ten commandments when his father had taken a grip of his black locks and pulled at them all the way back to the chapel, leaving Sister Merida to dress herself.

He felt immense pain from the tugging, his scalp ached and so did his knees when his father brought in pebbles from outside, forcing his oldest son to kneel on top of them and repeat his daily prayers very slowly. Using his wrinkled hands to push on his shoulders so he felt the pain of the pebbles making indents on his flesh even more.

He wept and wept, pleading for help knowing that he didn’t commit any sin besides look too long at Sister Merida’s body and for that he repented enough. “My sins are your sins and to make you avoid my sins, you ought to pay for them!” His father yelled at him, watching the stream of tears run painfully across his son’s face. 

What ensued next was his father dragging him out of the chapel to the Nun’s quarters, and through the backdoor in the kitchen to which the both walked through the woods and to their home. His mother had been waiting in worry given the boy had taken so long to come back home and dinner was ready, becoming colder by the minute now.

Her worry grew when he saw her husband cling his hand against their son’s arm. Crimson anger on the elder’s face. 

“Your pure clean son— Nothing but a sinner! Caught him peeking at Sister Merida when changing her habit. He’s nothing but a deviant! You preach and preach cleanliness but look at what I brought you. Nothing but useless, all of you! Especially you!” His father pointed at the woman.

Her body shook and his tears reflected on her face. The moment his father let go of his arm and made him drop to his knees to plead at his mother; Jeno cried even more begging her to believe that it wasn’t true, that he wasn’t a pervert like his father made him out to be.

As he kept begging and crying, the back of his mother’s hand came across his perfectly sculpted face. Not only once but at least four times since then, she opted to get the wooden spoon she was to serve the food and beat him until he shook from the pain. 

“Thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor, and thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother!” Her last streak had exhausted her, pulling out a chair to sit and watch her son cry in pain for a sin he didn’t commit but rather his father. 

As his mother looked at the damage she made, the welts on his skin, and clothes ripped by how hard she was hitting him. She was a sinner too, a bigger sinner than he was and by her sins he was paying the price now.

“Our sins are your sins.”  

That’s the fear he knew and something he never wanted to experience again. For the following years, Jeno gave up and allowed his parents to dictate his life. If he was to sin through them, then he opted to live as their shadow so he could at least know he was guilty if he followed their lead.

With his father’s obsession with the violin after their trip to France for merchandise, the old man had forced him to become a musician on the side, knowing well his son would still take the family business once he died. 

That obsession is what led to where Jeno was now. After finding an abandoned mansion behind the graveyard and in front of the river, in which Jeno could practice away from those complaining about the noise— the old man sat across his son, satisfaction on his face and anger whenever he missed a note.

As he continued to chastise his son for small errors, Jeno grew angry. It was becoming obvious and with that his father laughed, continuing his mockery and berating, making Jeno’s actions against the violin become violent. 

The bow harshly slid against the strings, their screams of pain louder by the second as Jeno tried to drown his father’s belittling in order to avoid yet another sin and the consequence of it. He heard laughter, it was becoming louder than the screeching of his bow and violin, and just as he had felt the anger run to his head and ready to strike at his father after having enough of it— The mirror on the wall cracked, causing both males to turn in fear.

They watched intently as the glass shards became smaller and smaller as they fell to the ground, revealing what seemed to be a body behind the frame. His father full of fear now and feeling his heart begin to stop, closed his eyes cowering behind his son. 

In you came, your limbs weak and in pain after centuries of being forcefully asleep in the confines of a wall. Beginning to move them, they creaked from the lack of movement. You didn’t make a noise besides groan at the pain that soon stopped when you stood in front of the young man.

“Why must thou wake me?” Your voice was horse but upon hearing it, Jeno’s chest clamped up feeling speechless. If there was more to the feeling of sin, you were sin personified. 

Wearing nothing but a gold brasier that was made to fit only you and a flimsy cloth (visible to not leave much to the imagination) around your waist that was only held by a band of gold. Jeno was now aware of what a woman of sin looked like and he for once did not see sin as bad.

He couldn’t speak, he bit down on his tongue hard enough trying to figure it out. If it wasn’t because you felt a rising urge when looking at his face and body, his silence would’ve made him your first meal after years of slumber. 

Yet with his father behind him, the old man pinched the lower back of his son, causing him to break out of the daze you put him in. Stumbling on his words and fear coursing through him, Jeno finally spoke. “Please forgive me, I didn’t intend to— I-I didn’t know you were behind there.” He pleaded, Jeno knew this was supernatural. Not everyone suddenly breaks free from behind a mirror with a vestment that was highly inappropriate for these times and would grant her death. 

You could smell the fear, surely. It was cute, endearing how pathetic he was acting. “Y/n… Queen y/n. The Great Mother.” Walking closer to him, your hand lifted. Running your fingers to caress his strong cheekbones and jaw, Jeno shuddered at the feeling of a woman touching him.

“Whom would thou be, darling?” You questioned, your left hand mimicking the movements on his face to his neck, nails softly scratching to find his pulse. “Jeno… I don’t have titles, your highness.” At the title he called you, your teeth took your lower lip, hunger and desire being the first to awaken after these centuries.

You chuckled at his nervous words, the cracking of his voice more evident when your finger ran across his lower lip, causing his breath to hitch in the back of his throat. He was so new to this feeling. To the feeling of arousal and despite his last experience of adultery after catching his father with Sister Merida was when a merchant’s daughter (friend of his father) had enticed him to kiss her and touched him, it did not amount to what he is feeling now with only your gracing touch.

“May I grant thou a gift? My gratitude for awakening me.” Your voice softened and lowered, eyes hooded as you stared at him making sure he looked directly into your own eyes whilst you held his jaw and neck. 

“Yes…” 

In a breath he let it out, leaning in you connected your lips onto his. In the instance in which you kissed him, Jeno felt the poisoning of your perpetual sin. He wasn’t married to you and here he was. With his lips moulding against yours perfectly. Opening his mouth when you opened yours— Jeno felt happy that he was sinning for once.

Your tongues enveloped each other and as you were to finish the kiss, your teeth sunk into his lower lip, making him groan in pain. Allowing you to lick off the blood you had drawn. He stood in pain, holding his lip with his own teeth, letting some of the blood drip to his fingers which you took with your own, savoring his sweet taste.

“Filthy wrench, tainting mine son and now a sinner thou become again.” The hateful words coming from his father broke the both of you out of the trance you created for both. Full of new rising anger, you turned to the old man who looked at you with obvious lust and jealousy of your choosing. Jeno was feeling no different, clear anger rested on his gaze, one that had never occurred to him in the past. Not even when his mother beat him into submission years ago.

“Who might thou be?” It wasn’t the softness you received Jeno with but still enticing enough. A smirk ran on your lips, making your fangs visible. Though the old man didn’t notice, Jeno did. Making his blood run cold again, fearing he’d be your next meal after you’ve finally had a taste of him.

He tried convincing himself that he was wrong, that vampires didn’t exist but upon the way you had woken, the look on your face, and the way you tried to not waste any drop of his blood— he was completely sure that you were one.

Chuckling knowing it was his turn and hoping to get a gift like his son did (much to your great disgust at his idea of familiar sharing), he spoke. “His fat—”

“An offering, My Queen.” 

Both turned to look at the younger male. Clear freight and surprise in his father’s face. Never has he interrupted him in all of these years of being alive let alone offered him like a piece of meat. That didn’t matter to you, he was here with an offering. A disgusting one but with an offering. 

Was it not because you were parched and you didn’t want to waste Jeno’s sweet blood, the old man would suffice. 

“Are thou mental? You’re offering thy father?!” He began to argue, turning to his son and raising his fists, beginning to hit his arms and near face to which his son began to whimper. You didn’t let him go further; taking a tight grip of his arms, making him groan in pain at the crushing feeling.

As he whitered, your teeth clung to his neck, hard enough to make him squeal like a pig when the butcher deemed its time. Jeno watched in horror how his father’s blood sprayed across the room, most onto him, leaving his clothes filthy. 

He watched you in horror, he didn’t know why he offered his father’s life. Jeno would never do something as sinful as that, or so he thought because here he was. Watching a hungry vampire queen drain his father from its blood and feeling no pain from loss but rather fear with how it’ll be brought up on judgment day.

Jeno trembled, his father’s body had dropped dead in front of his feet as a reminder of his doings, a pool of blood surrounding the three of you. His only instinct was to look around. He focused on the portrait decorations on the walls; all looked recent. The walls themselves are decorated with new wallpaper, the pastel colors bright despite the sun beginning to set. 

The furniture was painted in red, reminding him of what he just did. As he analyzed everything severely, he wasn’t so sure that this was an abandoned home anymore and rather his father had broken into it. He should’ve figured when everything was spotlessly clean and the only broken thing was the door from where his father had bashed a rock in.

Upon hearing your gagging, Jeno broke out of his fearsome daze. Getting the courage to look at his father again before running to you, helping you up. “Next time— don’t punish me with a rotten corpse, I only appreciate it for I am hungry.” Your last words, making his fear grow again. 

You sensed it though, a giggle leaving your lips upon seeing his widened eyes. “I won’t feast on you as long as you’re a good boy.” Wiping away the blood from your mouth, your lips pecked the corner of his. “Now close your eyes for a few seconds and hold me tight.” 

Jeno felt that surge of sin again, when you took his hands into yours he felt the heat of arousal commence but it only got worse when you took those hands and placed them on your bare hips, causing him to softly gasp. He hadn’t touched a woman before, a woman had touched him but it didn’t spark this feeling. Perhaps it’s your vampiristic essence that’s making him feel insane but sure you were a woman he needed in his life.

His hands made their way from your hips to your back as he wrapped his arms around you, holding tight to your body like you told him. You yourself felt that heat he was feeling. It was so obvious how innocent he was despite his grown age but given the way his father treated him, this boy was nothing but emotionally weak.

Gracing the pads of your fingers against his eyelids, helping him shut his eyes for a few seconds. Jeno couldn’t deny that he was slightly scared that his fate would be the same as his father when you closed his eyes but upon feeling your lips on his again as a form of waking him up; Jeno relaxed into the cushioned feeling of your now less chapped lips against his.

Once he opened them, he felt a sense of awe and amazement seeing the amount of gold around him. Jeno hadn’t seen so much money at once ever before let alone this much gold so it all felt like a dream. 

One moment he was getting berated by his father once again and the next thing he knew, he was in a golden palace with a hungry vampire queen that if she wanted, would surely drain him of his own blood too. It was whiplash what he felt.

His curiosity and overwhelmedness hadn’t gone ignored by you, you figured he needed time to relax about the happenings let alone the death of his own father. Caressing his face again, his arms not unraveling from you just yet, you smiled leaning in for yet another kiss that he didn’t even think twice about.

This was the most sexual attention he has gotten in years and despite them being simple, he was melting at your touch and taste. As your tongue swiped across the lip you had bitten; your hesitation made him pull away to look at you. “Is everything alright?” He questioned, his hands unconsciously rubbing at your bare flesh. You simply nodded, not trusting your voice around him furthermore regarding the subject. 

Your fingers running to his chest, unbuttoning the hand sewn-in buttons of his waistcoat; you spoke, “Take a bath, you’re very tense.” Pushing the waistcoat off his shoulders and down to the golden floor, you took his hand into yours, leading the way to the tub built into the floor.

Contrary to the golden decoration within, the tub was entirely marble like the altar table he saw before his first taste of unowned sin. The floor was decorated with fresh rose petals as was the water. Dipping his hand in, he could feel warmth, something that was rare to attain when bathing at home as they’d have to make the water last, only getting a bucket each for their cleansing.

By the moment he was to thank you, your person was gone making him shudder at the realization. Of course it didn’t bother him much, he would be more bothered if he had to strip fully in front of you. So once he knew you weren’t around, Jeno pulled on his breeches, socks, and pulled off his frilled blood sprayed white tunic, being left in nothing but nude. 

 Jeno couldn’t deny he felt some sense of peace. His overbearing, filthy sinner of a father was dead and gone. He felt like a weight had just been lifted off of his shoulders and the sins of his father were not his anymore except only his and his mother’s.

Just as he slid into the tub, the warm water coating his body and rose petals stuck to his well defined body (which thanks to his father forcing him to do every single heavy lifting task, he looked like this). Jeno began to feel the weight of his father’s death on him only for the sheer presence of his mother in his mind.

If he had never thought about his mother and how she’d force down his father’s sins on him once she found out, he would have full heartedly enjoyed his bath. It wasn’t fair that his father died knowing his sins were stuck to Jeno as he refused to take responsibility for his actions. It wasn’t fair that if his mother found out, he was to get the beating of his life and finally she would fulfill her promise of using the branding iron on him to teach him what sin feels like in hell. 

He knew she would do anything for his father. Even if it meant taking away his sins and giving them to their eldest child for him to suffer just so the filthy, cheating, poor excuse of a man wouldn't leave her with three useless children. 

In frustration and anger, Jeno closed his eyes. Submerging entirely in the tub and all he could think about was either drowning himself and carrying the sins of his parents to judgment day or— well there’s no or. All he knew was that he did not want to deal with the pain and guilt his parents have put him through anymore. Even so he didn’t have it in him to not live, he wanted to know what life felt outside of his parental grasp.

Rising from the water, Jeno ran his hands down his face. Pushing away as much water from it as he could so he could open his eyes. Still no sign of you, water dripping from his hair to his face, Jeno looked all around hoping to find you. 

With no luck, he sighs heavily before relaxing his body against the cold marble tub. His eyes fall heavy as he tries to fight off the guilt that has been engraved and carved into his brain his entire life.

He was like a fawn, delicate but quick to learn about his position in the world. Perhaps that’s what made him so endearing to you. He was naive and easy to handle, he didn’t put up a fight and his spurts of fear never lasted. 

Blame it on your hunger and desire speaking, but hidden behind the sheer curtains of the tub; you admired his body and how it flexed. He might be weakly minded but physically— there was nothing weak about him. 

After tending the abandoned palace in which you once resided, the smell of blood coursed through your nostrils making you rush back to the room where he enjoyed his bath. Jeno had begun nibbling on his lip after he rose from the water. His frustration made him break the skin again, forcing the blood to softly ooze out.

Jeno’s scent was nothing but strong, whether it’s the scent of a virgin or his strong pheromones, but Jeno was intoxicating and surely that was a big reason why he still remained alive (along how charming and adorable he was in your eyes).

You watched his every move. The way he leaned back and sighed heavily whilst his eyelids remained close. How his arms slung back on the rim of the tub, his body swaying softly so he could feel the rippling of water against his body.

This was a huge luxury for him and he wanted to enjoy every little detail of it. As the rose petals swayed along with the water he kept moving, it all became clear as well. The copious amount of petals moving further away and refusing to stick, allowing to showcase his entire body like a collectible behind glass.

He smiled moving his hips softly, no ill intent behind it. Yet in your eyes he was tempting your thirst more than ever. The way his toned chest and abs clenched. The way his flesh stretched against his ribcage when he twisted his hips, or the way his cock was out in full display.

Tip red even when not aroused, he was flaccid but girthy and slightly above average so perhaps once hard, it would all change. The idea of him becoming hard made you feel parched and not simply for blood but for a well deserved orgasm. 

In hopes that he won’t get scared away, you moved as quietly as you could. Finding yourself opposite from him in the vast tub that could honestly be considered near a pool. Jeno didn’t sense anything, he was in his own little world fighting himself between thinking of his guilty sin or enjoying what that sin was granting him.

Slithering towards him like a prying nerodia ready to attack, you submerged underwater inches away from his person. Opening your eyes underwater to experience all of his glory. You felt heat in your chest rise seeing how close his dick was to your face, wanting nothing more than to touch it.

Your hand had a mind of its own, making its way up to his torso only hovering above it before your fingers began to slide up from it to his chest as softly and slowly as you could. 

That took Jeno out of his trance, surprised but relaxed the moment he saw it was your hand the one touching him. It seemed as your heat radiated, making him feel it on the lingering touch of your slithering hand. 

Feeling your body closer underwater, his eyes began to flutter shut. His head lolled back against the rim of the tub once again. Slowly your head began to creep to the outside, wiping away any signs of water from your face with your left hand while you kept touching him.

Upon your hand making its way up to the nape of his neck and holding his head firmly, Jeno opened his eyes, adoring the way you gazed at him with want and need. He loved it, he loved when he knew he was needed and wanted.

Hovering over him, you smirked seeing the sparkle in his eye. “Can I savor thou again?” You questioned, face coming closer and closer to his. Responding with a whimper and a nod, his eyes closing with anticipation.

Your tongue ran across his lower lip, blood beginning to slow its oozing. Jeno shuddered at the action, lowering his right hand to where his fingers dipped in the water. You loved the taste of Jeno. He was fresh meat and something new to you. Iit was almost perfect that the universe allowed you to be awoken by someone as glorious as him. 

The hand that held his neck slithers down to his bicep, holding it whilst your left hand made its way to his jaw, grasping it firmly but not enough to make it ache. He leaned in closer to your lips, taking initiative that surely caused interest in you to see how desperate he was. Your lips connected, soft at first but as time progressed, they moved in unison. Him mimicking your actions from earlier and sticking his tongue out to savor your lips. 

They weren’t chapped anymore, almost as if his saliva on you made them youthful. Jeno smirked into the kiss when you softly nibbled on his lower lip. The sensation caused great pleasure knowing you were becoming desperate for him and his blood.

Jeno’s hand hesitantly started to move, fighting the urge to touch you. You felt the water rippling in between the both of you. Inching closer to him, you took his hand into the one that used to hold his jaw, quickly relocating it to your hip. Allowing him to do as he pleased.

He groaned at the proximity of your bodies, the tip of his cock starting to rub against your stomach while his hand massaged the flesh of your hip bone. 

Your mouth trailed its way down from his lips to his jaw, leaving open mouthed kisses that made him groan in anticipation as you went. His whimpering was so cute, they were addicting and reassuring that you were pleasing him. 

Unintentionally as your tongue lapped on his neck, lips surrounding areas of it and nipping softly, his hand inched closer to your ass, softly gripping it and pulling you closer to his body. You felt his growing erection, he was getting harder against your stomach the closer you got to him. 

He smelt wonderful, his natural scent seeping through his neck and the smell of his blood as you neared a vein was making you go insane. Your leg underwater came closer to him, calf rubbing against the side of his thigh.

Jeno felt you close, too close  at the worst time. Memories of his mother’s and father’s beatings got the best of him. A  gasp leaving his body as he removed his hands from you, guilt consuming him as you held him. 

You looked at him in confusion, pulling away from him as you noticed his discomfort. “Are you okay?” You questioned, eyebrows furrowed in worry as he swallowed the lump in his throat just for it to come back again.

He looked down, seeing how the rose petals weren’t there to cover him. He felt guilty, he felt the guilt of being hard in front of you, he felt guilty that you two weren’t together and he was defyling you. “It’s just— It’s just sinful…” He raised his head, looking at the way you’d react but upon gaining nothing, he sighed, continuing.

“Father is dead now, his sins have clung to me and if paying for my sins in death is the same way as I pay for them now— I don’t want to sin more… But when I look and touch you, I feel a sense of release.” 

His confession piqued interest in you. He was surely mentally strained from all he’s lived his entire life but maybe if you showed him what sin felt like, he’d learn to know that sin was inherently human just like desire and it would never go away.

Sighing, you came closer to him. Cradling his face into your hand, thumb caressing his cheek bone; “Thy parents are not teaching thou about sin, they’re the ones committing it and taking it out on thou.” Jeno’s tense feeling was easing at your words.

The more you looked at his face, the more you noticed small details. He had a tiny mole under his eye, it wasn’t visible unless you actively looked for it. “One cannot simply transfer sin to someone else, that’s not how it works. Only humans implement sin for fear; power is all you want and with power the more control you have. Is that not how thy familiar relationship works?” You question, making him nod as his lips became agape.

“Would thou let me show ye how good sin actually feels?” With a smirk slapping itself on your face, body as close as before. You held him with anticipation of how he’d answer but as he whispered a soft ‘Yes…” , with his consent your thigh graced his aching cock, leaning in to kiss him softly.

Telling him to sit on the rim of the tub, Jeno looked at you in confusion before he watched you come closer to him. Your hands on his knees, softly parting them so you could settle in between them. He felt himself shake at the image before him, wishing he had parchment and charcoal to capture this moment forever.

“You’re too tense, perhaps embracing sin will help thee relax.” Teasing him with your words, you finally settled in between his legs. Your hands clinging to the underside of his thighs, trailing kisses up from his knee to inner thighs, licking them softly the closer you get to his angry cock.

Jeno groaned, feeling your warm breath fan over his cock, making it twitch with just the sensation. He leaned back slightly, hoping it would help you in some way. He didn’t really know what you were going to do but he enjoyed the image of you in between his legs. His cock out in display for a beautiful woman to play with.

Glancing at him before you began, you took his shaft onto your left hand. Holding it firmly before you rose a little, accumulating spit in your mouth and letting it drip from your tongue to his red angry tip. Jeno groaned at the warm feeling, shuddering when you started to rub it around, up and down.

It was barely starting but little contact was making him feel insane. From what he recalls whenever the merchant’s daughter touched him, it didn’t feel this good. He remembers uncomfortably laying against a tree trunk as she rubbed him over his breeches too harshly at some point after he couldn’t get hard.

She wasn’t easy on the eye and her gown didn’t help him gain any arousal but on top of that, the guilt of sin was consuming him. When he couldn’t get it up and he didn’t want to touch her, she stormed off in frustration looking for someone else that could aid the need Jeno had caused in her.

He also recalls their kisses to be wet, teeth-clashing, and sloppy. It was nothing like the way you kissed him. If they were to get wet and sloppy, it never felt gross. You knew well how to clean it up with just another kiss.

And as you touched him, he immediately felt that need in the pit of his stomach, aching to be let out quickly. When you felt that he was somewhat well lubricated, you leaned in closer to his groin, making him shudder and moan at how close your mouth was to his aching cock. 

“You’re enjoying yourself already, huh?” Giggling, you began littering his cock with pecks. Your now soft lips coming in contact softly, leaving the lingering feeling on him, making this even more achingly painful. 

As he tried to control his noises, your kisses on his cock were becoming longer, licking small stripes on his shaft from time to time, always catching him off guard when you did. 

Jeno didn’t want to close his eyes, he wanted to experience every little thing you did to him even if his eyelids fought him hard enough to close in pleasure. 

All he could think about was how good this felt. In fear of the consequences of adultery, Jeno never dared to touch himself. He had always heard of unmarried men and women who’d succumb to the temptation of the body through masturbation and ended up having their hands chopped or burnt by either their family, the townspeople, or the clergy. 

He lived in fear of that, of public harm and for them to know he was that kind of sinner leaving his parents to be the laugh of the town. Even if he did have his urges whenever he did find or think about something that aroused him— Jeno would not become complacent to the ill thoughts of his brain and rather listen to his parents and the word of God. 

Upon your lips wrapping themselves perfectly around his tip, Jeno moaned loudly, finally shutting his eyes and throwing his head back at the suctionion feeling. He felt glorious, he finally knew the pleasures of adultery and he was enjoying them so far. Raising his head again, he looked at you intently, they way his cock was beginning to disappear in between your lips, making him moan even more. 

You swirl your tongue around his tip, later to take him all in once again. Jeno always shuddered when you took him all in. He knew he was girthy and when erect, it was long so watching you take him in at ease made him feel a harsh beat within his chest. 

He watched you intently at this point. How you bobbed your head at a steady pace, the pad of your fingers rubbing against his testicles, and how you hollowed out your cheeks whenever you were to go back to the tip of his cock, milking out the precum that was already getting out. 

It was mere moments before he actually came. Jeno had no experience with this and he was feeling too good, he didn’t know how to control himself when cumming. 

You heard his exasperated groans and cries. He sounded so pretty and nothing like what you’ve heard before. You truly wanted to keep him forever .

As your right hand took his balls onto it, palm massaging his left one while your fingers worked on his right; Jeno felt himself tense up. With his cock buried in your mouth, hitting the back of your throat, nose touching his pubic bone, Jeno couldn’t handle much anymore.

“I can—can’t, please!...” He whined, throwing his head back, running his hands all over his face and hair. You couldn’t help but chuckle at how hot he sounded, it was intoxicating just like the taste of him coating the entirety of your mouth.

Jeno grumbled when he felt the vibration of your sound against his sensitive cock. It didn’t help that your tongue was twisting around him, savoring him even more and creating more stimulation for him. “Y/n please…” He cried out, teary eyes looking at you. Listening to him, you slowly pulled away, a string of saliva connecting your lips to his aching tip. 

The image was so lewd, it was immoral but he couldn’t help but twitch at how perfect you looked like that. Even when you collected it all to rub against him, your hand jerking him off slowly whilst your eyes laid on his. 

“I want you to cum in my mouth, I want to savor how you taste… I want it all.” Jeno whimpered, head lowering to look at you closely. “Can I?” You questioned, your lips ghosting over his, received with a chaste kiss as he nodded, pulling back to give you more space in between his legs again. 

You didn’t waste any time, his tip was so swollen and he seemed in pain to just release. You took him all in, making sure you felt him in the back of your throat. Pubes brushing against your nose, the more you tried to take him.

He shuddered, his hand coming in contact with your hair, threading it around his digits. Jeno’s chest was red, panting, and sweaty. He couldn’t hold off anymore and the moans stuck in his throat were yearning to be let out. 

Pulling away to bob your head, hollowing your cheeks to have the pressure make him give in more, you held onto his thighs. Nails raking against them, inching him closer to his release. When he felt the pressure of your nails against him, he bucked his hips upwards, not being able to contain himself.

“Is that fine?” He questions regarding his thrust. Through a chuckle and a nod, you answered him. “I’m so close, can I just do that now?” He added to which you agreed again wanting him to finally feel pleased and for you to taste him.

Jeno moaned at the look in your eyes, taking a tight hold of your head before he began to buck his hips upward. You had stood up more on the tub to help him make it easier just like he had lifted himself up from the rim in order to not hurt you. 

His thrusts were hard, soft aches in the back of your throat but anything to make him feel good. He may be inexperienced but he was doing a good job right now, fucking your tight throat, all for him after these centuries of not being used.

“Oh God…” He groans, feeling thin spurts of cum leaking from him. His grip on your hair became tighter, holding it as he fucked into your mouth. Spit and drool all over your chin with every thrust as he pulls. 

He was amazed that you didn’t make a sound aside the squelching from your mouth and saliva but besides that you helped him reach his orgasm. Playing with his testicles and allowing him to handle you like a rag doll.

They became messy and slow, within his final thrusts the moans he was threatening to release were leaving one by one and with the help of your tongue lapping against the slit of his tip, Jeno let a loud elongated one, finally felt himself go, filling your throat and mouth with his load.

Some escaped from the corners of your mouth while he held your head in place. His body shuddered trying to calm himself down. Was it not for your gentle taps on his thighs; he pulled away apologizing as he watched your every move.

The way you pushed in the leaking cum into your mouth and swallowed it all, making blood rush back into his cock, rubbing his hands against his face to control himself.Chuckling at his actions, you took a hold of his forearm. He turned to look down on you, your sultry eyes making him focus on you only. Body floating on the warm water not even using it to clean off the dry drool and cum anymore.

“Would thou want to taste actual sin?” Pulling him into the tub once again, Jeno’s gaze never left yours. Determination and confidence in them as he pulled you to settle in between his legs. “Yes.” He was so sure of it, his voice deep and husky.

You smirked upon his answer, leaning in to take his lips into yours. His tongue poking out and running across your lower lip, having you part them so it’d roam around the cavern of your mouth. His hands resting on your ass, giving it a squeeze as he propped his leg, making you sit on his thigh while you two kept making out. 

You began to move your hips against his thigh, the water making it both easier and harder as the friction wasn’t doing much for you. Nevertheless as you pulled away, your lips kissed along his neck like earlier, forming small bites in a way to taunt him.

He didn’t react to it, he enjoyed them more than you thought. Along that he helped you get more contact with his thigh, holding your hips to help you rock against it. With his help you were finally feeling that pleasure you were yearning for. 

Your lips leaving open mouthed kisses on his flesh, traveling further to his chest, and to his right nipple. Biting softly at the nub, making him jolt forward slightly. The action became pleasurable to you as the friction from his thigh against your aching cunt was sudden. The rough jolt made you moan against his chest, tongue lapping at his perked bud. “Are thou sure?...” You pant, trailing one of his hands in between your legs to make him feel how wet you were because of him.

You groaned at the feeling of his fingers gracing your lips, shuddering from the feeling you crave. “Are thou sure ye want to taste actual sin?” You questioned again, your fangs peaking through not being able to hold off much. 

They softly raked through his flesh, the sharp feeling making him gasp at what you meant. He still didn’t look at you, he allowed his touch and hearing senses to dictate it all but if his blood meant your pleasure, then that will do. He would rather have a pleasurable ending than the hell his father went through.

“I’m completely and utterly sure.” 

His dark tone along his tight grip on your waist whilst the hand that touched you began to rub soft circles on your clit; you moaned against his chest. Mouth opening slightly wider, looking at him for signs of fear but with none, you close your eyes, fangs sinking into the taut flesh of his chest.

Jeno gasped again at the sudden prickle from your intruding fangs but when feeling more pleasure than pain, he relaxed. Feeling himself get aroused once again, the suctioning of your lips against his skin creating a tingling feeling course through his body. Goosebumps formed whilst he moaned softly, continuing his gentle rubbing against your clit and his cock getting hard again.

For once in his life he felt control and power over himself. His head wasn’t pounding with guilt and he felt light in his body. 

Jeno felt reborn. Reborn with no sense of guilt, no sense of immorality, and no sin. The venom of your fangs cleansing him from all inherited evil, resurrecting into this new creature he has now become.

Upon your mouth leaving his flesh, Jeno took your head into his hands. FIngers threading through your hair, holding tight to you. His eyes were dark, a red tint washing over his pupils and his gums aching at the creation of prominent fangs.

He has been reborn.

Pulling your face closer to him, Jeno stuck out his tongue. Lapping it over your blood covered lips, savoring himself on you. He moaned against the cushioned flesh, feverishly kissing you like no tomorrow. Fingers tightly holding to your hair in fear of letting go. Just like that he was in debt to you and didn’t plan on leaving your side. Ever.

 “May I taste the fruit of eden?” 

His husky tone makes you bite your lower lip as the both of you part. WIth a simple nod, he smirks. Taking your hips into his rugged hands, pulling you up the ledge of the tub just like he was earlier. His hands prying your legs open, settling in between them.

His face delved in between your thighs, teeth nipping the inside of them. His tongue lapped softly while his fingers worked to untie the cloth that soggily rested on your hips. With success, he pushed off the fabric, allowing your legs to feel a weight off of you and enough possibility to see him clearly between your legs.

Jeno didn’t hesitate furthermore, his tongue fully coming in contact with your wet cunt, tongue peaking out to slide up your aching lips. Tip coming in contact with your clit, causing a moan to escape your lips. 

He found it so pretty, even when you moaned against him it was all muffled so he couldn’t hear how glorious they actually were. Softly pulling away to see your expression, Jeno’s eye never left your face, the way it contorted as his lips rubbed against the nub, sucking softly then harshly to go back to his soft pattern.

Jeno felt your juices cling to his chin. How when he stopped sucking on your clit, his tongue slid in between your lower lips. Over and over so he could collect your slick arousal and swallow it like he was supposed to. 

He hummed against your aching core, your fingers clutching to his hair. “If I knew it tasted this good, I would’ve succumbed so long ago.” He spoke against you, his fingers teasing your entrance. You moaned again, this time making him look up at you with the tug of his hair.

“I don’t want to think of thou with someone else…” You pout, a smirk forming on his lips whilst he chuckled, plunging his tongue in and out of you. Biting your lip at the feeling, you felt the knot in your stomach begin to ease. “Don’t worry. I want nobody else but thee.” 

As his words settled, Jeno went back to focusing on you. HIs lips wrapping around your clit from time to time trying to edge you on faster. His tongue lapped at the juices that he didn’t allow to fall past your entrance, savoring every drop. 

Jeno moaned around your clit, the vibration making your insides tingle with how close you were to an orgasm. His hands grasping tightly onto your thighs, tongue and lips going at it onto your lips and entrance, his nose beginning to rub at your cit. 

The sudden friction of his nose against your clit was making you spiral furthermore. His tongue moved in and out of your entrance, rimming it from time to time, and taking its time to lick away the arousal you let out. The movement of his jaw was making you go insane, feeling the wetness on it whenever his face came close to you.

He kept going, your moans becoming louder the more pressure the tip of his nose put on your clit. Friction from the rubbing made your head spin and it didn’t help that his tongue was causing so much pleasure in you.

Jeno knew you were going to cum already. With the tight grip on his hair, the way his nose rubbed against you, your increasingly loud moans, and your twisting and turning, he moaned against your cunt. Tongue pistoning inside you, replacing his nose with his fingers.

Faster circles being rubbed against your sensitive bud, eliciting meowls out of great pleasure. “I want to taste thou whole too. Please…” He pleaded, his hot breath against your lips making you shudder. Biting your lower lip and nodding in response, Jeno continued to eat you out, leaving open mouth kisses to your labia whilst his fingers stimulate your clit.

Your legs twitched as he kept going, Clawing at your collarbones as you felt the knot in your stomach untie and the rush of an orgasm ran through your entire body. Moaning loudly, holding to his hair while you came against his face, Jeno moaned, licking every last drop.

Spasming under his tongue as he kept going, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything; you pant, chest heaving whilst trying to relax. His touch, hot against your cold skin. 

Satisfied in knowing he’d made you cum and left no drop behind, Jeno got out of the water, sitting beside you to pull you into his embrace in order to help you calm down. “You’re right, it felt delightful.” He kissed along your temple, turning your head to slot his lips with yours, the taste of you still lingering in his mouth. 

Your lips never left each other’s, Jeno clung onto your body. The more you two kept kissing, Jeno pulled you down with him, his body hitting the cold tile floor, groaning slightly from the sting.  His hands never left your hips even when you went to straddle him; his hard dick coming in contact with your warm cunt. At the contact, he moaned against your mouth, your tongue running against his upper lip.

“You’ve been so good to me, Jeno…” You moan against his mouth, hips softly rocking, friction from your cunt to his cock. His hips fighting to not jerk upwards. “I’m aching and throbbing for thee.” You bit his lower lip, taking it with your own teeth and pulling softly to look at his fucked out expression. “Would thou want to savor the essence of thy Queen?” 

His hooded eyes looked at you, how your upper body rose; hands going behind your back to unclasp the hooks that held up the golden braiser, falling to the ground with a clank the mere moment you dropped it. Jeno’s cock twitched at the image before him, feeling himself swell at the idea of being in you.

“Anything thou give, I will take with gratitude.” He responds honestly, sitting up with you still on him. A smirk of satisfaction laid on your lips. Hands reach to the pins in your hair and take them out, allowing your hair to cascade down your shoulders and back for him to enjoy.

You threw all of the pins to the floor just like the piece you wore except for a pretty long thin one with multiple flowers around the top. It wasn’t until he looked at it closely that he saw the sharpness of it. He watched your every move as you held it, enticing him with your movements until it came in contact with your skin.

A gasp of concern leaving his lips when you put pressure against the flesh, slowly sliding the object against the top of your right breast. Jeno looked at the maroon beads, how they oozed out faster than when you bit his lower lip. 

Generally he would be highly concerned but the smell of you was intoxicating him and he couldn’t think of anything more than to taste you, to take your blood into his mouth and know what heaven felt besides the taste between your legs.

His hyponotized gaze didn’t go ignored. Taking one of the rolling beads onto your index finger, your hand reached out to his lips. His tongue coming out to wrap around your finger and suck off the liquid, moaning against it to let you know he was enjoying this.

“Feast all thou want.”

With your words, Jeno let out a disgruntled moan, lips latching onto the opening. Suckling with so much fervor that you felt arousal flow out of you and onto where you two were connected. 

Your hips began to rock against him again, the slickness between you making it easier. Soft moans leaving your lips just like they left him with the feeling you were giving him and the taste of your blood.

“I can’t— I need to be inside of thou right now.” He groaned, helping you off of his lap and pulling you up once he was standing. Jeno’s steps were rushed, his hand wrapping around your wrist to pull you towards the upholstered padded white bench hidden behind the sheer curtains.

Gently helping you climb on as he did after you, settling behind you. Your back in contact with his chest, his hands roaming every curb of your damn body. Both propped up on your knees, Jeno softly rocked his hips to create friction between your ass and his hardened cock. 

His breath fanning against your ear, left hand stopping at your right shoulder whilst his right hand toyed with your wet cunt. Fingertips teasing your entrance as his palm rubbed against your clit. 

Holding you tight, forearm near enough to your neck. “I need thou badly but how badly does thou need me?” His voice was deeper than moments before, tongue gracing the outer shell of your ear and nipping at it. 

Jeno had changed in a matter of minutes, his shy and guilty persona was gone and now all that remained was the confidence and power he always craved. With the way he was acting and with his fingers slowly entering and curling inside of you— you needed him more than anything.

“I need thee more than anything… If I don’t have thee in me, I’ll end up coming on thy fingers.” You confess, pushing your ass backwards to press harder against his cock and his fingers to move deeper within you, feeling your juices accumulate all over his palm.

He pouted, kissing your neck, “But I want thee to cum around mine cock.” He whined, fingers pulling out of you, receiving a cry from you. His words were so lewd, never would he ever think about letting them leave his mouth let alone think of them but now that was his vocabulary. 

 Jeno lifted up his fingers up to his mouth, using the hand that held your shoulder to hold your face now and turn it so you'd look at him. His tongue licking up your juices, stuffing his fingers inside his mouth and sucking off your essence.

Your chest heaved in need, the image before you making your innards twist in agonizing need and want. Jeno pulled out his fingers just for his lips to fall upon yours, kissing you feverishly as his wet fingers and hand traveled downward, taking his hard shaft and running the tip of his cock against your slick entrance.

“Jeno, please just get inside of me.” You mewled, pushing back against him. Chuckling at your request, He used his left hand to push you forward. Back arched and ass sticking up for him, your hands gripping the arm rest before you as he continued to tease your entrance, tip of his cock accumulating your arousal.

“My Queen is asking ever so kindly… Anything for thee.” With his final words, Jeno sunk into you. His girth making you moan and whine at the sting as he stretches you out. “Ah, fuck!” You let out, Jeno hissing at how tight you felt around him, sucking him further in.

He felt great pleasure when he was deep in your throat but it didn’t compare to him going balls deep inside your wet cunt, the warmth feeling better as he began to rut his hips against your ass. 

“Thou can move faster, love. It won’t hurt me.” Turning your head to look at him, Jeno groaned at the haziness in your eyes. He never knew adultery felt this good, now he understands why all those people sinned for this..

His grip on your hips became tighter as his pace increased. The sound of his skin slapping against your ass, the tightness of your cunt around him, juices flowing every time he pulled back— Jeno truly did love sin.

Moaning with every thrust the harder he went and the deeper he got; “Thou was made for me, Jeno… Feel how perfectly thou fit inside me.” You mewl, beginning to rock yourself against him. 

“Mine Queen that is correct, we were made for each other.” Pulling you harshly by the arms, you gasp at the sudden movement, holding onto his thighs for balance. “I don’t want to ever be away from thou now.” His confession only made you chuckle, bringing his arms to wrap around your waist as you held him.

Fucking yourself against his cock, “Thou shall never leave my side, I will make sure of that.” Bringing one of his hands up to your lips, you kissed his knuckles, his hips jotting rapidly against you. All that left your lips were loud moans against his flesh whilst he panted against your shoulder.

His free hand pushes your hips to him with every thrust, making you feel him go deeper and deeper. You felt dizzy every time the thrusts were increasing, he felt swollen compared to earlier, and your walls were contracting against him. 

“Thou sound so pretty, keep them going, please.” Jeno begged, kissing your neck and shoulders as he tried to muffle his own moans. You began to fuck yourself against him, both of your movements making Jeno go insane by how you helped him.

Centuries of not being touched and Jeno a lifetime— the two of you weren’t going to hold up much longer, even if you’d both had an orgasm not long ago.

Whilst he kissed upon your sweating skin and cock pounded within you, reaching levels one has before, you bit his knuckles softly, your body beginning to shake at how close you were getting. Squelching sound of his cock going in and out of your wet cunt, driving you insane as you felt him at your hilt, bulging against your stomach.

Moving his hand from your hip, Jeno touched the bulge he created, groaning every time he felt his hand move forward. “You’re taking all of me so well, I’m so glad you’re the one I’m doing this with.” Leaving open mouthed kisses on your spine, Jeno kept his thrusts going.

It seemed you were much more needy than him, as you felt yourself tremble upon another orgasm coming to you at the image of his cock pulsating within you. Your legs were giving out on you and your hands shook, barely being able to hold his hand anymore.

“I can’t take it… Jeno, please! Please, I’m going to cum!” You cried out, dropping his hand to hold onto the arm rest. His bitten fingers and knuckles traveled in between your legs, collecting the fluids you were creating and rubbing them against your clit. 

Motions soft and slow before he began to add pressure and speed up his circling. “Do it. Cum around me so I can cum in thee already.” Your legs shaking more than before, your moans came out as whines and cries, the slapping sound of his hips against your ass becoming echos within the golden walls.

You were close, very close. With only a few more of his rough thrusts, feeling his tip hit your g-spot perfectly and his fingers stimulating your clit all so very well, the coil within your stomach had unraveled. Legs spasming as you came all around his cock, holding tightly to the benches’ arm for support whilst he kept pounding into you, trying to chase his own release.

It didn’t take him much longer as all he needed was to feel the warmth of your orgasm wash against his cock. Thrusts become sloppy and rougher the faster he goes, your moans egging him on to cum already. Watching your tired body holding up just for his release; Jeno groaned loudly, his moans falling out of his lips one after another.

The string of spurts leaving him little by little with every thrust. Just as he felt himself closer to his release, you began fucking yourself against him order to help. With both of your thrusts, Jeno didn’t hold back anymore.

Throwing his head back with loud moans and cries as he released his load within you; you joined him, moaning at how good it felt to be filled to the brim again.

He fucked you throughout it, his sloppy thrusts igniting another quick orgasm to wash over you. Just as you felt yourself become over stimulated and he felt his cock soften, Jeno softly pulled out of you, making sure none of his cum slipped out.

If it did, you collected the dribbles onto your finger, making sure he watched you take them inside your mouth and swallow it all. 

He loved it. He loved how you didn’t let anything he gave go to waste. Flipping you to your back as he caged you above, lips connecting. Kissing you with all his pent up passion, lowering his body softly but not enough to suffocate you.

Your arms wrapping around his broad shoulders, caressing his sweaty flesh trying to feel the comfort he gave you. 

When you both felt the need for air, Jeno pulled away first. Peppering your face with kisses, listening to your soft sighs of tranquility. “I shall never stop telling thou how glad I am that I did this with thee first.” He softly spoke against your chest.

Laying his head in between your breasts, cradling it and playing with his damp hair. “I also am glad thou are the one to have woken me up and be with after centuries.” Kissing the top of his head, Jeno twisted his body to look up at you.

“My Queen, the one to open my eyes about the pleasures of life.” He kissed your chest softly, “The one to let me be reborn again as what I truly am… May I get a taste of thee again?” He questioned in between kisses, lifting his body more to have his lips come in contact with yours.

Moaning against them, Jeno’ s lips moved to your neck. Soft kisses before they became rougher, the smell of your blood enticing him. Licking short stripes until he found a spot in which you moaned when you felt his lips surround it.

With a final chuckle of satisfaction, Jeno’s lips fell agape, fangs coming out as they penetrated your flesh. A moan of pleasure and pain leaving your lips with his every suckle. It was arousing to say the least. You felt the pangs of your cunt come back and felt the need of wanting him back inside you.

He was getting hard again, his cock rubbing against your thigh as he kept drinking. Jeno only pulled away when he felt your hand wrap around him, jerking him slowly. “More my Queen?” He asked with a cheeky smirk on his blood stained lips.

Lifting your head to lick the blood off his lips you nod in need. 

“If thou grant me that gift, My King.”

1: Georgian slang for crazy/stupid

2: In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit [latin trans.]

[bosooka]

Hey, it really isn’t cool how mean you were to that person who was criticizing the new mandalorians. I know we all have a lot of strong opinions and love Star Wars, but please don’t be so mean to other fans…it’s just not cool :/

Y'know Anon. You sent this at a really great time, about five minutes before I logged off social media for Yom Kippur, which means I got to spend all day ruminating on this, possibly the worst of all my sins:

Being rude to people online over Star Wars.

My first instinct when I saw this was to reply with something along the lines of "no, fuck you", but seeing as how it was Yom Kippur and I was in a mindset for examining my past behavior, I set this instinct aside and looked deeper as to why I get so incredibly angry when people post wildly incorrect New Mando meta where I can see it (y'all, I have every possible variation on the "anti satine" and "anti bo-katan" tags blacklisted. If I see something it's because OP neglected to properly tag their shit. This is a Sin.)

Here is what grates me:

The implicit or explicit assumption that pacifism and nonviolence are A) flawed/complacent, B) undertaken from a point of ignorance, and/or C) the beliefs of the privileged. This bothers the Hell out of me, because anyone who knows anything about violent conflict and civil war knows that no one wants violence to stop than people who are senselessly suffering as a result of it. What takes like "Satine is only a pacifist because she was sheltered by the Jedi" tell me is that the person with that opinion fundamentally does not understand what pacifism is, think physical violence is the solution to anything (it is not), and are probably an American who came out of the womb to the recitation of the War-Hawk Propaganda Handbook.

Absolutely outlandish assertions with no grounding in reality like "Satine committed genocide". I am not going to entertain shit like this and I'm not sorry about it. I understand perfectly well the tension between holding onto cultural practices and letting go of violent traditions. The idea that armor, weaponry and murder are an inextricable part of Mandalorian culture to the point where choosing nonviolence is a form of cultural genocide is vile. If you genuinely believe that Satine "We are a people of tradition" Kryze-- the only (named) Canon speaker of Mando'a in TCW, whose dresses are modeled after Mandalorian flowers, who wears Mythosaur tusk earrings, who is so furiously defensive of Mandalorian autonomy that she allowed herself to become a fugitive just to preserve their independence-- is destroying Mandalorian culture and letting Mandalore become a satellite of the Republic, what I understand is that you're saying is that you think the death cult of terrorists who enslave and murder innocent people and torch villages as a show of power have the correct conception of their culture. The True Mandalorians are NOT CANON. They are NOT RELEVANT TO THIS DISCUSSION, and they are NOT GOOD PEOPLE in Legends anyway. If Satine did dissolve the True Mandalorian organization then that's a good thing, because they were a roving band of mercenaries selling their morals to the highest bidder!

Just about every Satine/Bo-Katan fan I know has gotten hate at some point or another for liking them, usually including accusations of actual real-life racism or bigotry. I, a Jewish person, have been called a Nazi over a fictional character I happen to like. (I know, I bring that up a lot. I hope I don't have to explain why it stuck with me.) Now, I don't know about y'all, but I have never in my life sent hate to someone over a fictional character or opinions on the happenings of a series set in a fantastical galaxy with laser swords. I have never sought people out, opened their ask box, and typed in "kys you fascist waste of oxygen". Let me tell you, people do not show this same decency to myself or my friends. Is this keeping me up at night? Nah. But let's not pretend I'm the Biggest Asshole For Ten Miles when there are users around that genuinely believe that being more interested in Jedi characters than clones is racism and people who do that are racist.

That being said, you're right, Anon! I should be less rude. After all, the last person I scolded reached out to me privately and we ended up having a great and friendly discussion even though we didn't agree on anything. (I did apologize by the way, just nowhere you saw it.) I am aware that I am short-tempered, often judgemental, regularly vindictive, and occasionally petty.

So, here's the deal: I am not going to stop getting angry when I hear people say that violence is the "only" answer to a conflict or a problem, or that pacifism is morally reprehensible, or that my favorite character committed genocide. For heaven's sake, I changed my career path because of Satine, of course I'm protective of her. I have been paraded around like the Queen's corpse on Twitter for saying Thrawn isn't that great of a person so I am going to indulge myself with a touch of over-investment in Satine's fandom reputation, since literally everyone else is doing it.

HOWEVER, I am going to make an effort to be less hostile (and sarcastic). For the sake of my soul but also, more urgently, my blood pressure.

Shanah Tova, Anon, thanks for helping in my self-reflection!

[ragnaofazure]

Rebirth from Blue.

During his slumber, he had but one dream... One alone.

The reason why he had been brought back to this world. Why he was still alive after bringing back possibility to the world, since that took the ultimate sacrifice to stop existing altogether.

Why did it happen? Maybe to remind him why cling on to life until the last moment? He was unsure. Nevertheless, it still took place...

(BGM)

"..." True nothingness. The consciousness of the exhausted young man floated in the darkness of the space he was now in after his arduous, tiring journey finally had come to an end. A journey with suffering, pain, misery and little to no hope, enough to break any human from the very beginning of the amount of tragedy that befell upon him. He was meant to destroy the world, that was his duty, his whole life was dictated from birth no matter what transcurred; the world and it's awakened gods said it so.

Despite that, he rediscovered his heart. No matter if he became the worst criminal in the world in his current history. The great, horrible beast growing in him making him a root of all evil innately... It mattered not. His good heart never did die off.

...But. That was right. Why was he conscious? He was supposed to no longer exist. He surrendered his very being. All so the world could live again, all so the gods would finally leave the world alone after the terrible mistakes his kind made.

His vision came into focus, he was floating... This 'oceanic' space; he had seen it once. He slowly moved his body, fingers running inwards to feel his palms, then his frame... Everything was in place. Like nothing had happened. Yet he felt drowsy, lethargic... As if he had been sleeping for what was years, but there was no way to know for how long he had been... Not existing. Attempting to make sense of the situation, he tried to 'swim' upwards to the light at the 'surface', but to no avail.

"..." He tried to speak to himself, but no words came out. Everything was functioning, just... no voice. He was stuck in place, thinking of what to do, what was happening... But it was not long until the words crept into his mind and heart. Voices he was familiar with up until his final confrontation.

'𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬.' '𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.' '𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥.' '𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘤𝘩.'  '𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.'

In traditional response to the situation, Ragna smiled and sighed, never allowed to speak in most situations... What a welcome back.

'𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥. 𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦.' '𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨.' '𝘈𝘯 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭.' '𝘔𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺.' '𝘚𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥.'

'...𝘠𝘦𝘵.' '𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘪𝘥𝘦.' '𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴...' '𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.' '𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥.' '𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴, 𝘵𝘰𝘰.'

He was confused. What was he... 'reappeared' for? To hear a recount of his actions during his last hours? Be granted a little few moments of conscience once more?

'𝘞𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥.'

'𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘺. 𝘍𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘪𝘵.'

Then... What was it? His impatience was showing, painted in his face, either to let him vanish back to nothingness or whatever it was they had in mind.

'𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯.'

'...?!' The shock was beyond palpable, Ragna was expecting anything, but this?! Was he dreaming something fierce as his true dying experience?

 '𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮. 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘮, 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭.'

'𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶.'

'𝘈 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦.' 

'𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭.'

'𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳...'  '𝘛𝘰 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.'

'𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.' '𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘣𝘺 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴...' 

Ragna did not consider himself any of that... Which only solidified 'their' thoughts, causing a chuckle that very moment before resuming the explanation.

'𝘏𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥. 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘰.'

'𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.'

'...𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥. 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘦... 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘮𝘣 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭; 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥.'

'𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭...' '𝘞𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩?'

Nodding, his gaze hovered over his 'right arm'...

That damn beast, what is Yamata no Orochi's second coming would continue to nurture off him... But he did not fear it and knew his final fate nonetheless. Still determined to keep living with his resolve... Especially now with a newfound second chance.

'𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵... 𝘖𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳.' '𝘞𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺.'

That wasn't all? To him it was beyond enough...

'𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭.'

'𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥... 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵.'

' 𝘈𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘪𝘧 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳.'

'𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭.'

'𝘐𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘦. 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺.'

'𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰���� 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦. 𝘈𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴.'

'𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘦.'

'...' His mind and heart remained in absolute silence... But not from disappoint. His will was still unbreakble, demonstrating he had no qualms with his destiny. Mismatched eyes were clearly glowing with life, there was not a single shred of doubt nor complaint on having to go back wherever exactly as he was. Who else could be trusted to not commit atrocities should his fate be transplanted onto someone else? Nobody deserved to carry this weight, this fate, power...

He was no martyr, he did this because nobody else could be trusted with it either.

Always a root of all evil... If it must be, that was who he was.

The Grim Reaper, The Black Beast, The Man of Azure, Central Fiction... Anything.

'𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥...' '𝘞𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶��𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵.' '𝘞𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵.' '...𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶.' 

'𝘌𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩.' '𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵. 𝘉𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯.' '𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘵.' '𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴...' '𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥.'

'𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘸𝘰𝘬𝘦.' '𝘙𝘪𝘴𝘦... 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥.'

Steadily, he was finally able to 'swim' to that 'surface’ in this space. That light... He could hear it. So many voices, the temperature was getting warmer. Eventually, the light became bright enough as fingertips reached, as if he was being drawn in, becoming disoriented and losing consciousness momentarily.

"..." When he came to, he began rubbing his eyes as they readjusted to everything once more. This... was real. He had returned to the world. Where and when? He didn't know. He was a wanderer officially. It mattered little. Oh so little.

Looking at the vast sky, he smiled. "...I can only hope I'm in time to still enjoy life, huh? As much as I’m allowed to." Commeting playfully, for once, there was hope. He felt no weight on his shoulders or anywhere else other than the ones of all his sins prior to calming down.

Truly and fully, Ragna was free despite still being who he was to the world, and for what it was worth... He intended to make most of what he could.

A chance to live... A hope. He was given that which he thought no longer deserved.

[cassatine]

Hi, I sent you an ask a while ago about Ben Solo living after redemption, and I just wanted to say thanks for your in-depth thoughts. I also saw TROS and although I was disappointed/grieved, it was Rey’s story that really got to me and made me feel miserable. I wanted an atonement story, a romance, but I also didn’t want to lose our heroine on the altar of nostalgia. It all felt so status quo, “leadership” and capitalist. I’m not insecure about what I wanted from this story anymore. Fuck Disney.

Hi nonnie! Glad to see you again, although I do wish both of us had more to celebrate wrt TROS, and sorry for the late reply - I’ve been Reacting to TROS quite a bit, but tbh mostly circling the Rey & Kylo Ben arcs because it hurt me in a way other aspects of the shitty subtext and bad pacing don’t, and I’m still untangling… idk, the ways that it’s shitty because it is, and the ways that it’s shitty for me, because it hit some personal stuff and I was completely unprepared for that.

Longish rambles under cut

My thoughts on redemption and atonement haven’t changed, but it’s been on my mind a lot recently so I’m taking the occasion to air some more here.

I wrote this in your first ask (I think it’s the one)

I’m not even that much of a fan of redemption arcs on a personal level, but these arcs, whether they’re about the nitty-gritty of redemption and the difficult process of realizing, admitting and then acting on the fact that you fucked up, that you were wrong, that you did wrong, whether they’re fantastic and exaggerated and written in blood across the stars - they’re about people’s capacity to change for the better, to come back from the worst version of themselves. They’re about the fact that however far you might err, you can change paths; it’s never too late. What’s not to like in that? It’s some of the best humanity has to offer, the very capacity to grow and learn and admit wrongs and become better for it.

TROS sure didn’t change my mind on that - in fact I��ve seen enough people saying Kylo Ben Deserved Death and read enough Terrio/Abrams interviews by now that I’m feeling it more than ever. I kind of want to talk about in terms of different views of justice, restorative vs. punitive, but what I really can’t stop thinking about is that one definition of redemption, “deliverance from sin.” I’m not religious, but I bathed in enough catholicism growing up that this does mean something to me - I’m not hot on the whole notion of sin, but deliverance? God cares about sinners is what it means; it’s the whole fucking point. God forgives, and doesn’t yeet you in a fucking pit when you finally decide to get your act on straight.

Ahem. I’m talking in religious terms because I’ve been seeing a lot of reactions couched in a very different view of sin, which posits that once you’ve been tainted, whatever the circumstances, it’s done and over, you’re bad forever. To the pit you go. It’s not something I find a lot of beauty in (a euphemism for the ages). It’s not the same view of God, and it’s not the same view of human nature.

Which circles back to justice, restorative vs punitive - there’s a wide array of positions, of course, but fundamentally if you’re inclined to believe tainted once tainted forever, that this is human nature, you’re much more likely to go for punitive justice, and with a depressing regularity on socmed, as far as ‘actually I can totes cast the first stone’. And you kinda need to believe humans can grow better to go for restorative justice, or to at least to want it to be true.

I’ve been thinking about how I don’t particularly care for redemption arcs myself; I like them fine, but I’m not… enthusiastic? about them. I compare that to people to whom these stories matter deeply, and I don’t want to overgeneralize because there are plenty of reasons to be drawn to redemption stories, personal or otherwise, but I’m coming to think a big reason why I don’t respond much to redemption arcs (unless they titillate my id for another reason) is basically that I don’t need the affirmation that people/me can grow better and come back from the worst version of themselves. It’s A Given that’s pretty much been drilled in my head and that I’ve never seen reason to undrill, even at my most misanthropic (and that was A Lot). 

This was a lot of rambling but what I’m saying is yeah holy fuck we need redemption stories that delve in the process of atonement and where do we go from there. No one fucking misinterpret me on this, but fiction does have an impact - a story’s never just a story: it comes with its creator(s)’ views and questions and beliefs, it makes points consciously or unconsciously. As audience we can challenge ourselves with stories that challenge our own mindset. Or do the opposite, find affirmation in stories - and both are good! some things do need to be affirmed (like people’s capacity to grow better), although I’m also veeery dubious of points like happy endings are better or those be the rules here is the template a story must follow; I enjoy escapism as much as anyone and I don’t particularly want to challenge my views with every piece of fiction I consume nor do I think anyone should do that, but I’m wary of any position that boils down to “fiction should be comfortable” because - and again! I like escapism! it’s kinda like asking for the bread & games back but without the bread. 

Anyway, I’m really oversimplifying but basically, imo the most impactful thing fiction can do is challenge people’s views and all that jazz, and I’m all for challenging the kind of bullshit TROS served us and the whole notion that sin doesn’t wash off eveeeer and that at best redemption is death in sacrifice.

I’m not even going in the Good Child / Bad Child vibes in TROS. I should, because it makes the whole thing even less palatable, but honestly, I just can’t.

Okay. I think I’m done with that. 

Going back to your actual ask -

I also saw TROS and although I was disappointed/grieved, it was Rey’s story that really got to me and made me feel miserable. I wanted an atonement story, a romance, but I also didn’t want to lose our heroine on the altar of nostalgia. It all felt so status quo, “leadership” and capitalist. I’m not insecure about what I wanted from this story anymore. Fuck Disney.

tbh foregoing my own preferences the main reason TROS sucks *that bad* is… well you more or less said it. It’s a film that feels like it’s been designed by a marketing team trying to reach the widest possible audience by having something in it for everyone at a purely cosmetic level. I’ve mentioned the shitty subtext (and it’s A Lot, like the core thesis of the film imo is [this], pretty much every woman’s done dirty [thread], Poe’s background is fucking racist and Space Orientalism is in full form, and here’s for [Finn & troopers & agency], and [my fears aging like fine wine], just for a top-five-or-so of Things That Set Me Off), but the shitty subtext is there because it’s a soulless, incoherent void of a film that can’t commit to anything. 

It is… *drumrolls* A Product. As disappointing as TROS was, at the end of the day there’s really no reason to expect stories produced by fucking disney to truly commit to pushing narratives that criticize the status quo they thrive on. “SW is about fighting fascism” my whole ass, SW is about American nostalgia for nicely black and white conflicts and under the surface it’s always been reactionary af. It could always be read in different ways, and R1 & TLJ let us glimpse a version of the franchise that could grow beyond, and maybe there’ll be more of that, but I’m not gonna hold my hopes up personally. 

Sorry I wish I had more positive things to say - I’m glad you don’t feel insecure about what you wanted from the story anymore though because like… why would you? All of us are invested and we want the story to resonate with us on a personal level. Nothing wrong with wanting romance and atonement or a heroine that’s not done dirty.

[asinfulpagan]

Do I Exist?

Do I Exist???

*This is a work of fiction, yet it’s also a work of truth.*

Do I Really Exist?

Being gay at any age I would imagine is a hard thing to do. From as far back as I can remember, I remember my older cousins, uncles and even my dad talking about “homos” and “fags” I wished so much I could scream into their ears, QUIT HURTING ME! Instead I listened, and then lost. I lost my spirit of living; then lost myself. Now, I have lost my soul. I remember during a cub scouts trip when I was about 10, another kid called this black boy a “nigger” I don’t know why I did it, but I beat the hell out of the kid who called him that. I guess somewhere; somehow, I too had already grown too familiar with hatred. But that’s for later anyways. I am writing this short story too simply try and inspire others. To save those like myself before they too must ask, Do I Really Exist?

Can this life be reality?

I went to church most of my childhood, until the preacher man told me God didn't want me. I see kids today and wonder if I was ever really that innocent. Now I sit, beaten down by pain. I always thought life was wonderful and miraculous experience. As a kid I dreamed of being a doctor. I wanted to go to Africa and cure AIDS. I wanted to be the man who a difference in the lives of everyone he touched. I wanted to be respected, I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to be accepted. Now I know none of these are possible. Not for someone like myself. Can this life be reality?

Of course it is, but why?

Obviously this reality is true. I know that the preacher man says God allows suffering because he allows freewill. God, what I wouldn’t give to have the freewill to stand up and declare “I EXIST! QUIT HURTING ME!” Yet I cannot. I cannot hurt my family by telling them. I couldn’t stand the idea of my own dad telling me I am not his. The preacher man already told me that my spiritual father disowned me. I could not handle my flesh father disowning me too. A boy needs at least one dad don’t he? Someone famous said once, “We suffer to learn” I should be a college professor on loneliness. So, can this life be reality? Of course it is, but why?

Why must I pay for sins uncommitted?

I have probably known I was gay since I was about six years old. I remember just a simple and innocent acknowledgement. It was never in words or thoughts, just in action. Where boys were running from the girls with cooties I was chasing the girls to play. Where the boys played sports, I was talking to the girls. Maybe people thought I would be a ladies man. Rock Hudson again I guess. My being gay has so little to do with a physical desire, and so much more to do with an emotional necessity. It is not from downstairs that I think, but from behind my heart. Yet, God has already abandoned me. My family has spent years making sure I know what they think. I have no guy friends, because they seem to think I will turn them gay somehow. I wish it where that easy to show others what pain my broken heart shields. Gay for a day, maybe then some of this world of pain would subside. Maybe then even God would reconsider me. Why must I pay for sins uncommitted?

How did I get infected with homosexuality?

Throughout my short life I have tried time and again to figure out what made me gay. As an early tween I thought it was something I was over-eating or maybe the old joke is true, it’s in the water. Yet, why am I the only one affected by this disease? I know others on the planet exist with this same condition, yet it seems they weren’t coming to help me. I was on my own in a world that wanted me to go away.

As an early teenager I tried to remember if anyone had ever hurt me. I read somewhere that sexual abuse is why people are gay. No such luck, I was perhaps psychologically and spiritually tortured, but none of this could be the cause of my infection. Now I fear the worst, it’s not a disease, which means there is no cure.

With the lack of a specific event, thought or emotional deficiency in which I made the choice of being Gay, I can only assume that I was born this way.

If God does not make mistakes, how can I be gay?

I always thought babies where pure and innocent. Yet this baby grew into a kid who was not wanted. Then a tween that was too scared to find himself. So I became a teen with only so many options. I know I was born this way. I know I was taught not to be who I am. I know I tried to change from being this evil entity to what the world wanted of me. Oh how I tried so desperately, but now I know I was born this way. Yet If God does not make mistakes, how can I be gay?

By the time I was 13 I had experienced others hatred.

Besides protecting the dignity of that little boy in cub scouts, I have had hundreds of run-ins within my short life. As a kid I would hear other boys calling anyone they didn’t like a “fag” I was grateful it wasn’t me they were talking about, yet I was ashamed I wasn’t the gay super-hero I had always dreamed would come and rescue me. I guess the gay super-hero doesn’t exist. I wonder if heroes exist at all. How could they with the pain we all suffer? Whose soul is strong enough to really fight this kind of a battle? Not mine, that’s for sure.

Even today I cannot understand the pain that people afflict onto each other. All I scream and cry out for is love. Maybe that’s what we all cry out for. Maybe the lack of a response to our cries is where the pain comes from. I still believe in God, even if he doesn’t want me too. Today I prayed that someone would answer the next kids cry.

I remember as a kid, I was sitting with my parents in the living room. They were watching the news, while I played with a deck of cards. Then the news story broke; the story that forever changed me; the story that made me afraid to go to sleep, yet afraid to wake up. Mathew Shepard had been beaten then crucified. I guess the preacher man wasn’t lying after all. Jesus died for your sins but not mine. For mine, we must all be crucified physically, spiritually or emotionally. For sins like mine, we must atone ourselves for no church will offer a God that allowed his son to die for me.

By the time I was 13 I had experienced others hatred. Now, at 16, I must atone for my sins. I have suffered two of the three punishments I must in order for God to forgive me. The only one left is physical. I hope God finds I have paid enough for this unnatural sin. Now that I think about it, it has been other people’s hatred that has allowed me to even experience my own self-hatred. Turns out I can beat myself up better than ten gay bashers ever could.

By 15 I had already lost three teeth because of hatred.

Around the age of 13 I also made another mistake. I told the one guy friend I had, that I was gay. The next day after school, two of his friends hit me in the face with a big board until a tooth fell out and blood covered my face. That was when my crucifixion began. I only wish it wasn’t as slow as it has been. Over the next two years I lost a couple more teeth to rumors. Each time I lost a tooth, I thought of Mathew Shepard. I would wonder if this was it. If this time it wouldn’t be just some blood and teeth, but that I too could stop suffering. My face hurt a lot, my mouth looked like I had been hit by a car, and my soul had already died. Where once a soul lived now only the darkness of self-hatred can thrive.

Now, at 16, I am beaten down.

My mouth still isn’t completely healed. I don’t know if that one tooth will ever come back, and the signs of a tortured life show all over my body. Old broken bones that never healed right show their distress. I never told my parents about my fights, so they assumed I was a clumsy kid. How could I ask for a doctor when I would have to explain why I needed one? Besides allowing me to pay for my sins, the physical pain also allowed me to remember that I am subhuman. It is best to remember that when being a deviant like myself. God demands I remember that. I will never gain his forgiveness if I think my sins are as natural as everyone else’s. I have been beaten down in so many painful ways. I have paid for my sin for as long as I can. Now, at 16, I am beaten down.

So, I shall pay my final price.

A life that once held so much potential has been traded for a life of sacrifices. Even sitting here, I still haven’t the courage to tell anyone else that I am gay. It was never the physical pain or death that I feared. It was always the loss of my family’s love that scared me into a slow and silent death. I wish the old tale were true and love could be blind. Then my family and God wouldn’t hate what I am so much. Life though, has proved that love is not blind. The world has taught me what suffering is, and God taught me that all sins are not forgiven. The bible says “if a man also lies with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Mathew Shepard was the reality of this message from God. My life has been spent living the message of God it seems. I will not fail him; I will fulfill his desires for me. Then, maybe, he will at least allow me to sleep outside the gates of Heaven.

My life.

My life has so very little meaning left in it. It really isn’t a life as much as it’s a purgatory. An event that was designed just for me to pay back to God what I had cheated him of. He created me to be a good person and to help those in need. Instead I threw it all away by being gay. For this one sin, no amount of retribution will save my soul. That’s OK though, my soul left me a long time ago anyways. As if it too where ashamed of me. My life hasn’t been a life since I was a toddler. All the time since then has been my suffering. How I wish I could have been given a chance to do something with My life.

Do I exist?

To a world that wishes people like myself didn’t exist I say have patience. You are slowly killing us without even having to use a weapon. You go to our schools and lecture the next generation on the abomination of homosexuality. You get laws written to ensure gays will never be anything but subhuman. You even manage to make sure the Boy Scouts will eliminate any kid that walks my path. You have ensured no compassion for an entire minority.

Do I Exist?

Yes!

Do you care?

I wish someone would have or even could now; then I wouldn’t be writing my on suicide letter. As in life, this too is done alone. They say in your final moments you will experience the love of God as your beacon of light to go towards. I still don’t feel the presence of God.

***********

Robert

*This is a work of fiction designed to help open the hearts and minds of those who desire it. Every year more and more gay or lesbian teenagers feel the suffering offered in this story.

don’t be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

(c) Copyright 2007-20011 www.Facebook.com/commanderchase

*** I want to thank whoever pointed out to me that every reason given in this letter has been fixed in our society

this was an old piece of mine written more than 15 years ago I'm glad to see that change comes pretty quick.

[ryanmeft]

Bad Times at the El Royale Movie Review

Bad Times at the El Royale has one of those titles that tell you exactly what to expect. It smacks of the kind of paperback potboilers that were once found in droves on spinner racks in dusty old strip mall bookstores. It is not art. It is a slapdash serving of pulp, a 2-and-1/2 hour punchline to a joke that begins “A priest, a singer and a vacuum salesman walk into a hotel…” Pauline Kael once famously said that if you cannot appreciate great trash, you might as well not go to the movies. This movie is the epitome of that philosophy.

We open on the El Royale, a once-lively hotel on the California-Nevada border that, it is claimed, has fallen on hard times after losing some license or another. The truth is that this is one of those nowhere places that exist not because there is any probability they would, but because they need to for the story to work. Standing outside are a black woman named Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Ervio) and a Catholic priest named Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Inside is a wonderfully overcooked Jon Hamm, claiming to be a vacuum salesman and talking in a “Southern” accent so ridiculous it must be deliberate on both the part of the character and the filmmakers. Apparently, there is no bellboy, at least until Sweet simply marches behind the counter and fetches Miles (Lewis Pullman), who is oddly terrified to see a priest. Then Dakota Johnson shows up with a swagger, signs the guest book with an epithet that is certain to come true, and our players are in place. We already know dire things are afoot, because in a highly effective opening sequence, we’ve seen a man (Nick Offerman) hide a bag beneath the floor in one of the rooms before getting a hole blown in him. Let’s pause a moment to highlight Ervio as a talent of note. This is her first film role, unless you include Widows which, since the general public can’t see it yet, I count second. Sweet is the one character in the film who is always sympathetic, but that doesn’t stop her from being, well, one hard bitch when she has to be. And this is the kind of setting where she has to be.

There are, of course, twists, which I will speak of in this paragraph, so skip on ahead if you don’t want to know. The vacuum salesman goes into his room, calls his wife and child, and immediately begins removing listening devices from the phone. He soon discovers each room has a two-way mirror and sees hints of private lives: Sweet practicing her singing in the mirror, the priest digging up the floorboards of his room, and the woman taking another bound woman (newcomer Cailee Spaeny) out of her trunk. The bellhop is in the backroom, shooting up heroin. Eventually, all of these stories will be filled in through overlapping flashbacks, as the plot stacks upon itself like a deck of cards. It also ends up involving a charismatically deadly cult leader played with burning swagger by Chris Hemsworth, a robbery gone wrong, and Herbert Hoover.

I may have told you this is not a particularly artistic movie. That’s true of the plot which, among other things, makes sure to film Hemsworth without his shirt on in literally every shot he’s in. There’s something to be said, though, for a movie that knows where it lives. Drew Goddard, writer of The Martian and Cloverfield, has clearly made what he wanted to make, a pastiche of violence, sensuality and mystery that is meant to entertain rather than enlighten. I’ve seen some reviews lambasting it for being what it is, which suggests it should be something else if it wants a decent write-up. I’d argue it isn’t a critic’s job to decide what movies should be, but rather to tell you if they are good at being what they are. Bad Times is very, very good at being what it is. The influences seem clear: Elmore Leonard, Pulp Fiction, those wonderfully trashy book covers that promise all the neon lights and sordid drama you can handle. It comes in a little long, and Goddard could have picked and chosen what to show the viewers a bit more carefully. At times I wondered if we could just jump to the end of a shot where a character walks slowly down a hall, or skip past the third point-of-view of one of the plot twists. The last shot is entirely too dear for the material. I was, however, rarely bored, and I would argue that being boring is the worst sin a movie can commit---far worse, for example, than being pointless, which could from one vantage point describe every movie ever made.

It is not an artistic movie, but it is not without art. The El Royale as a place is literally on the line between California and Nevada, and each half of the hotel shows a different vision of gaudiness, be it endless options for gambling (my personal hell), or 70’s Cali glitz. If the film were more Oscar bait-y, the camerawork of Seamus McGarvey would be getting more attention. It uses heavy rain to denote this as a place divorced from the rest of the world, wrings everything it can out of that sequence where the lives of characters are revealed through a series of glimpses through glass, and has a lot of fun when showing us the same shot from a different angle. Even the ending, which devolves into a rather standard showdown, is shot by a man who cares about what he’s showing us.

When I read that movies like this should be less bloody, or more serious, I can’t help but wonder if the same critics would have said the same thing about, say, Hard Eight or, yes, Pulp Fiction. Bad Times similarly doesn’t care if the story it tells meets with the approval of wags. It is convinced it’s a good one, and that conviction is often enough to carry it through slow spots and an altogether too-sentimental last shot.

Verdict: Recommended

 Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[politicaltheatre]

The Boy In The Bubble, pt.1

If you’re of a certain age, you might just remember a TV movie starring John Travolta, “The Boy In The Plastic Bubble”. Travolta was only TV famous then, not yet movie famous, and the bubble wasn’t literally a bubble, it was all of the plastic suits and rooms and boxes on gurneys that protected Travolta’s character and his broken immune system from the always sunny yet lethal outside world.

It was an innocent story from an innocent time. Of course, no one at that time thought of it as being particularly innocent. In the mid to late 1970s, America was still dealing with the fallout from the Vietnam War, Nixon’s Watergate scandal, the sexual revolution, spiritual curiosity and psychological awakening, the civil rights movement, and the women’s rights movement.

We dealt with none of it well.

Far from learning any actually helpful lessons from the carnage of Southeast Asia, American foreign policy switched from supporting dictators and death squads there to doing so in Central and South America. Those working for Nixon who didn’t end up going to jail, such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, only learned the lesson that next time, whatever they did, they just shouldn’t get caught. That, for them, was Nixon’s only sin.

Meanwhile, whites were fleeing to the suburbs and the cities they left were burning. The religious cults that people fled to for emotional support either fleeced their flocks or convinced them to kill themselves - sometimes both. In the cities and suburbia, depraved serial killers suddenly seemed to be everywhere and spreading like a plague. Children were no longer safe playing outside at night. Worst of all, the decades long threat of nuclear war was rapidly becoming matched by the growing fear of nuclear power and nuclear meltdowns.

All this, and the pandemic that would come to be known as AIDS wasn’t yet even on anyone’s radar. That would come a few years later, about the same time we learned not to trust non-prescription drugs like Tylenol without tamper-proof lids.

And yet, it was a much more innocent time. Perhaps this is because we knew less. We didn’t yet know what we didn’t know, and what our leaders knew, they generally didn’t share. Not that we knew, or even thought to ask. Nixon and the Pentagon Papers destroyed our faith in government, but even then we chose not to seek answers we didn’t want to know.

There’s a lot of willful ignorance now, too, but it has more to do with the corruptions of consumerism and tribalism. Thanks to the internet and mobile devices, we have the ability to learn what our leaders once hid and got away with hiding, and to do with speed that 40 years ago seemed like science fiction.

Sadly, that same technology has allowed us to have what we want when we want it, right down to a reflection of our own, narrow, self-serving political beliefs and the fantasies we require to hide from what we don’t want to know or even see.

We aren’t challenged, we don’t have to be, and to make matters worse we have externalized so much of our collective memory that we each know just about nothing that doesn’t reflect those same narrow, self-serving interests.

We fetishize our ignorance, embracing it as an affectation, something restoring us to and maintaining us in the perceived safety of pre-adolescence. If anyone comes along showing us rational proof that we are wrong, we dismiss them because we can and continue until we absolutely can’t.

If nothing else, this helps explain our current economy and with it our current politics.

We jump from one short term solution to another, from one passion to another. Our collective speculative interest raises the fortunes of politicians as if they were stocks on Wall Street, reducing them to flavors of the week, almost all fading just as quickly as they rise.

To win, a politician needs a hook, something to elicit strong emotions. It must be bold or reckless, or even violent. To sustain that success, a politician needs to keep delivering. What they deliver seems to matter less than the how and the when.

It’s quantity over quality. In short term thinking, quantity will do. You offer options and the enabling audience takes what they want to suit their own short term interests. Everything else is just a cost of doing business. It’s transactional, pure and simple.

Quality demands more from an audience. It answers the rarely asked question of what the audience actually needs rather than what it simply wants. There’s a very good reason that question is rare. Its answer demands a stronger, lengthier commitment, one that requires many to sacrifice what they want for a greater good.

If perfect is the enemy of good, in politics it’s the enemy of winning.

Deliver a clear, rational plan to solve the country’s long term problems and you should be elected; do so without entertaining, without pandering to the basic emotions and short term interest of your audience, and you might as well be one of those brilliant but cancelled shows lost to the Netflix algorithm.

Case in point, Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts Senator made a few missteps in her now ended campaign for president, but the further she got the more those errors were dictated by things beyond her control.

The one getting the most press, and deservedly so, is sexism. Of course, sexism played a part in her candidacy’s failure, and that of the other five women who ran (Tulsi Gabbard’s zombie of a campaign was over almost as soon as it started).

So much of our culture, starting with our economy, is built on an imbalance of power. Today’s relationship between employer and employee is little changed from that of the feudal master and apprentice.

In this model of behavior, the apprentice starts out having no power, exchanging time in servitude for an education in a craft. The master, possessing the resource of knowledge which he may share as he chooses, may exploit his apprentice however he pleases.

In the short term, this works for both of them. The master is served and the apprentice learns. An imbalance of power, however, cannot be sustained indefinitely. The more the apprentice learns, the less of an imbalance there is and the more difficult it becomes to exploit him.

To maintain his power, the master has two choices: enable the apprentice so that he may himself become a master and then find a new apprentice to replace him, or abuse the apprentice so that he will be forced to stay as and where he is. The more the master abuses the apprentice, the more the apprentice wants to leave and the more effort must be made to keep him where and as he is, and so the cycle repeats until the apprentice revolts against the master, removing him one way or another.

For decades now, the backlash against unions as well as civil and women’s rights has attempted to maintain an economic underclass, to push men and women back where and as they are supposed to be. This has not been some grand conspiracy. It is just what happens when a group that has had it good finds itself in decline, or merely in competition.

Sadly, this backlash has to a great extent succeeded. Union membership has fallen, partly because union leadership has become disconnected from those they serve and partly because laws have gutted their ability to fight. Civil and women’s rights have never been stronger, but members of those groups face racism and homophobia and sexism transmitted like a virulent plague by bots and trolls hiding behind the perceived safety of anonymity.

For someone representing a group that has been abused and exploited because it was different enough and acceptable enough to be abused and exploited, the challenge of campaigning for office let alone winning an election is daunting. They do from a position of weakness defined by the same imbalance of power that underlies the very culture and economy in which they run.

So, how else can we expect the candidacy of someone on the wrong side of that imbalance to end?

True, Barack Obama won twice, but his victories were an outlier. He was the right, inspiring campaigner at the right economic catastrophe of a time going up against Republicans who failed to show either economic competence or empathy when it was most needed. Had it not been for the idiotic deregulation of banking that helped John McCain and Mitt Romney’s most important campaign contributors, Obama may have faced far stiffer competition both times. He might even have lost.

Obama was helped, too, by changes in our culture. Black, male presidents had already been portrayed as competent, empathic heroes in popular films and television shows. All he had to do was inhabit the role, and he did so as if those earlier films and shows had been written specifically with him in mind. If only he had their script writers.

He arrived with a mandate for change, and yet in his two terms Obama just about gave it all away. Part of that was because even as “the most powerful man on the planet” he was still on the wrong side of an imbalance of power. An unscrupulous Republican-led Congress obstructed him at every turn, nakedly serving the very wealthy at the expense of everyone else and daring him to call them on it.

He never really did. Perhaps this was because, as a follower of The Chicago School and “Clinton” Democrat, he simply agreed with many of the Republican’s “business friendly” policies. Mostly, though, it was because of the color of his skin, which those same Republicans and their business friends exploited to stir up fear and hatred in communities facing decline, ones looking for an other to blame.

What’s odd is that Obama won in many of those regions, even as congressional Republicans shifted their party further and further towards the naked racism and scapegoating of Donald Trump. Those people, the ones who voted for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, really did seem to want change, and perhaps still do.

Could Warren have won in those regions? Possibly. Campaigning as a woman meant that she, too, had to curb her sharp edges the way Obama did, and for a while that seemed to be working. But then it didn’t.

That, ultimately, had less to do with being a woman and more to do with being a brand.

Bernie Sanders is a brand. So is Joe Biden. The difference between them and the twenty-something candidates they have so far beaten has been name recognition. You might be thinking, “What do you mean, ‘name recognition’? Everybody knows who Elizabeth Warren is by now!”, and to an extent you’d be right. But you’d also be wrong.

What the Bernie and Biden brands have going for them is longevity. Brand loyalty is built on habit, and people having a good feeling about a brand for a long time is an enormous advantage. It’s incumbency by another name.

The Bernie brand has been around for four years and it remains strong, in no small part because it has big ideas that require no detail whatsoever. Ask any die-hard Bernie fan to describe his Medicare For All plan in any kind of detail, and the vast, vast majority won’t be able to. It would be great if they could. It would be great if they even took the time and effort to look it up. Few do.  

So few people do, in fact, that the insurance lobby has gotten away with painting it as irresponsibly expensive - it isn’t - and even aired a commercial during the South Carolina debate in which they claimed that it would raise already expensive insurance premiums. Medicare For All doesn’t even have premiums! Aside from one article published just last week in the New York Times, no one in the media even caught on. That should embarrassing all of us.

Still, the Bernie brand is strong. He represents a fantasy of what our country could and should be for a growing percentage of the population. That he may not be able to achieve his campaign promises is beside the point. That is, it’s beside the point for enough of his fans - the real fans, not the possibly Russian and/or alt right Bernie Bots - that they don’t want to hear about it.

That, naturally, hurt Warren. The cold, hard reality of what we must do for each other has long been her brand. That means details, and details mean quality, which requires long term thinking on the part of an audience, which means good luck back in the Senate.

Too late, she tried to pivot to place herself as the sensible choice halfway between Sanders and Biden, but sensible isn’t a choice voters like to have to make, and Biden’s brand has proven to be just as strong as Sanders’.

Biden’s strengths both match and mirror those of Sanders. His name recognition was so great that before he even announced he was the frontrunner. He was a popular vice president, endearingly known for gaffes, not policy. The details of his past are not pretty, not if you were on the wrong side of that imbalance of power.

His current power, however, rests in fantasy, one equal and opposite to that of Sanders in one very specific way: Joe Biden is the “safe” choice, promising to return us to a happier past.

In his case, it’s life before Trump, which is quite a fantasy to have when you consider just how bad things were under Obama. This is because life under Obama was ruled not by him but by his nemeses in Congress, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who together pushed the imbalance of power in the country almost all the way back to the time before unions or civil rights or women’s rights really took hold.

It was their effort, along with their friends in business and in the right wing media, that paved the way for Donald J. Trump to take Movement Conservatism and make it his own. They, of course, were just building on the work of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who rode the Bush family brand back into the White House and rode American credibility and the American economy right into the ground.

They were as responsible as anyone for the election of Barack Obama. That was the America we wanted to leave behind. Now, we have something far worse.

The idea of going backwards to something better is a terrible brand to have for Democrats. It’s one built on fear. It’s one built on short term, transactional thinking. Biden’s solution to our growing health care problems is to slap a patch on it, to tweak it here and there. He, too, doesn’t have any details, but he isn’t offering them because it’s an advantage not to. We want fantasy, we want that protective bubble, and the fantasy he’s selling of leaving this toxic world behind is plenty.

For now.

Biden currently has momentum and it may well be enough to secure the nomination before the party convention this summer. If he does, expect Sanders to endorse him and campaign with him in order to rid the country of the one thing they both agree it needs to lose: Donald Trump.

Do not, however, expect a campaign filled with details. The fantasy, writ large with big, bold messaging and one main theme, is all you will get. It may be all  want, especially if he succeeds.

Then what?

- Daniel Ward

[orangeeveningsky]

On Getting Hitched and Its Dissociation with H.E.A

My dearest TUMBLR,

I’ve missed you so bad ever since you’ve been blocked by my country in 2018!

I know, I know.

I'm sorry that I've made promises that I would be a diligent writer and I failed it yet again because I’m such a lazy chit.

Anyway, it came as no surprise that the one thing that I would post after I went M.I.A for many moons is some food for thoughts. I wrote the initial premise back in 2018 and was planning to post the whole thing before the "positive internet" strike.

It's been a while since my first draft--originally it was a review of some sort for Because This Is My First Life, the 2017 K-drama--so, I decided to edit the draft.

It all started with some questions that I had in mind after watching the drama series and experiencing some turbulences that happened in my life during the same time:

"What is marriage?"

Is it the union of two people in love with each other and want to cherish their love for the rest of their passing breaths, in the eyes of God and all his mortals?

Is it merely a status that will ensure convenience on both parties involved, for a very long time?

Is it an old, outdated, ancient concept created by our ancestors’ to bind two people for the rest of their lives together, for them to sire legitimate offsprings?

Which one is the true definition of the holy matrimony?

Those were the questions and I have yet to find the answers. It's been two years, and it still stayed at the back of my mind. It crawls out of there every time someone mentioned marriage or weddings or starting a family, basically any marital kinds of stuff.

Well, truth be told, marriage is not for everyone.

My 16 year old, sheltered, and sickeningly romantic self would gasp in horror to that statement. It's true. I grew up in a society that viewed-- hang on, it still does--marriage as some sort of life achievement, especially for women.

The ideal life viewed in this particular society is something like this:

Growing up -> go to school -> go to university -> get a job -> get married -> have kids -> have a harmonious happily ever after a.k.a H.E.A.

In real life, that ideal life usually went down to the nearest bin, as reality sucked and bit all of it to shreds.

You know what, some people aren't keen enough to commit and be responsible for their choices, let alone to be committed to something permanent like holy matrimony, for the rest of their lives. The alarms would go off for them.

However, even those fellas might still get married. It could be because of social pressures, the need to have a "successful life", some serious case of F.O.M.O., or they just fell in love with someone and felt that they have to marry them because that's what people do after some time of dating, right?

Have a lovely wedding, go on a honeymoon to some exotic place, procreate, have lots of cute kids, and boom! you're guaranteed a wonderful life ahead of you.

..or probably not.

Most of the time, people become disillusioned with the H.E.A stories often shown in fiction, mainstream media, and even social media-- which ahem, consists of well-curated feeds-- to a point where they ignored the shenanigans and horrors that will come after the wedding ceremony. They jumped to the wedding with flowery path expectations, and when the marriage started after the wedding, they were unprepared for the rotten buds.

Those fellas who got married just for the sake of it, might crash their marriage as they were not yet ready for the responsibilities and hard work that comes with marriage, and will end up hurting their spouse (and children), through marital affairs, abandonment, or just general neglect.

It's actually very sad and disheartening that many marriages end in a divorce and most of them are for the best. Certainly, it's happier to end a broken marriage rather than keeping it afloat just for the sake of the children or just for the sake of keeping their social status, their family name, you name it. Sure, the children will suffer a lot, but I personally think it's better the parents separated earlier rather than trying to keep the broken marriage and ended up raising their children in an already ruined household.

On the other hand, we've got lots of people who are decent responsible adults, but they don't want to get married. They decided to stay single for some reasons, and hey, that's fine too. Sadly, society is harsh on them, especially if they are unmarried women. They get all sorts of names (ever heard of "Old Bachelor"? why do we only hear "Old Maid" all the time?), they get pigeonholed in the society as well, they hear hearsays and all sorts of rumor spread around about them. It's as if they had committed the biggest crime or sin just by not being married.

In my understanding, it's mostly rooted in the "marriage is an accomplishment" belief and the more religious one, "marriage is one of the pinnacles of your good deeds to your faith" as if we don't have other good deeds options. Ironically for the latter, many people did get married just to be able to get laid with their lover and not be seen as a heathen or an adulterer in their religious comunity--I'm not kidding, it happens all the time! those poor couples just happened to be dating for some years, but then some gossipy neighbors started to put fuel to the fire and lo and behold, those couples were immediately married off by their parents, nevermind that they haven't reached the legal age.

The hardcore religious people hid behind the good deeds excuse and reduced the holy matrimony into something to legalize-- halalize if you will-- their sex. Very opportunistic and dirty, indeed. 

It's disgusting that it's what many people campaigned for, nowadays. Well, at least in my country they do. They even made some social media accounts, blatantly promoting marriage as an excuse to deflower some girl--gosh, I sounded like my granny here. In such campaigns, they even dared to put a list of what an ideal wife should have...in the patriarchy book. But they never put any emphasis on decent husbands.

Mostly those social media accounts just posted some corny analogies that ended up insulting females in general. It's maddening that they have a massive following and they just keep growing, even after so many backlashes.

Anyway, in another spectrum, there are also people who got married because they were in love or at the very least, can tolerate each other even during their worst moments, and they’re sure that they were meant to conquer the world together--this would be one of the coolest motivations. 

Viva world domination, baby!

In all seriousness though, I think many people did get married because they liked or even loved each other at some point before they decided to wed. You see, most of us dreamed of having a marriage out of love--again, all those fairytales and fictions weren't helping. 

For me personally, I used to be such an extreme hopeless romantic and would go out of my way to make sure that I would have to be head over heels with someone and they would have to be hopelessly in love with me as well before I decided to get married.

See? That's some ridiculous naivety right there.

However, it all changed--and in retrospect, I can never be more thankful-- after I’ve witnessed with my own eyes, that marriage can't last through any kind of disasters, if it's only based on love alone.

Love will fade.

That's a pity, but it will happen sooner or later in the marriage. The flames might still be around somewhere, but it needed some sort of fuel to keep the marriage blazing. That fuel might come in the forms of trust, commitment, honesty, good communication, and other secret ingredients of a long-lasting and tolerable marriage that was never mentioned in any fairytales alike, yet available to procure just by observing other people's marriages around us.

For the world domination part, let's imagine if there is no mutual orientations or visions between the couple in their marriage.

If there is no foundation for a home, it will easily fall apart.

Everyone needs a purpose in their life.

Everyone needs a purpose to keep doing what they do. They need to have some sort of goals to accomplish, or else they would give up all too soon. It's easy to break one's promise if one doesn't have enough reason and/or motivation to stick to.

Well, world domination might be hard enough to accomplish, but there are plenty of other goals that can be mutually agreed by the couple. Supporting their spouse in their aspirations, listening to each other's deepest fears and cheapest thrills, be the life companion for each other. 

Raise the family if they want to have children, taking good care of their kids, make sure to provide a safe environment and good upbringing for them. Even if they were not yet ready, or not planning to raise any children and just want to adopt a pet, they need to make sure to be caring parents to their pet. And the list is endless. Good communication and transparency are important in setting these mutual goals.

Oh, one last thing, meddling families can be a chore, sometimes.

This is something that can cause problems in the marriage. However, I still think that the couple will need help from their families from time to time-- which was actually one of my issues with how BTIMFL resolved their big families hullaballoo. In real life, avoiding families and/or in-laws' is no easy feat and it's something that if it’s done, could come across as rude and disrespectful. 

When we married someone, we married into the family as well. We got a new spouse and a new family all at once, how convenient! 

However, maybe not so much.

Not all of the family members will welcome the new member with the warmest and biggest hugs. But still, we became part of the flock and it's important to reach an understanding with our spouse of how far our big families will be involved in our marriage.

I think most of the family members, especially the parents, only want the best for their children's marriage. The intention is noble most of the time, but the manner of their assistance combined with their ego and other dilemmas might be a recipe for a time bomb in their children's marriage. 

Furthermore, overbearing family and in-laws do exist in real life, albeit many of them is a more toned-down version of their dramaland's counterparts. Thank God.

In the end, after writing this post, there are some realizations that I discovered for myself:

a) I still believe that the kind of so-called relationship goals--in regards to marriage, not dating-- that I aspire to have is the marriage of justice RBG and her late husband, Marty. Their equal marriage is way ahead of their time and is not something that many people are lucky enough to have, even in this day and age, more than 60 years after their wedding.

b) I will probably most likely get married when/if I met some guy who liked me enough, could tolerate my random ramblings, and might be willing to participate in my convoluted mini world domination plan, despite all the shortcomings and hustle bustles that awaits in the marriage jet coaster.

c) I will have a hard time to re-create something like a) but perhaps, given the right spouse--whoever he might be-- maybe I will be able to at least have a decent marriage where my future husband and I can laugh at my follies in this tumble until both of us felt giddy and breathless, in the future. Who knows.

[monsterfucker-lisa-swallows]

Why Mika’s Death was Not Okay

It is a rule with fandom that the longer you stay with a series, the more it’ll disappoint you. A series will inevitably fail you, but the rule never will. Whether or not, as a viewer, we allow these sins committed by our favorite shows to turn us off til we turn it off for good is our own personal choice. Blind love can only carry us so far.

 It turns out that even though I feel the atrocities committed in the second episode of season 5 of Orphan Black are narratively unforgivable, I’m in too deep to turn off the tv now. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t see how the final trip ends when with only 8 episodes left. But I can’t forgive the writers for killing off Veera Suominen.

 Now I get it; I’m a writer, and I feel that while storytellers have a responsibility to care for our audience and to understand the broader impact of our art we also have a deeper responsibility to ourselves. Most storytellers would agree that their best stories were passion projects that felt as if they were just burning to get out of them. The finished product should always be something that, when looked at later, the author can look back on and be proud that they really put all of themselves into. Can Graeme Manson and John Fawcett honestly say that this is the best, most shining example of their work? Is the way they tossed aside such a valuable character really what they had in mind from the beginning?

 For the uninitiated, Veera Suominen (hereafter referred to by her preferred nicknames of M.K. or Mika) is one of the latest female clones to pop up on the scifi television show Orphan Black. She was a valuable new addition to the team last season, as she was a connection to a previously hinted at massacre of clones in Europe: the infamous Helsinki event where a group of clones became self aware and were killed to protect the interests of their creators. Mika was the only clone to escape alive, and was so traumatized by what had happened that she basically became a hermit. She was smart enough to know that it wasn’t safe to be seen out in the open, and she used her considerable skills as a hacker to keep an eye on what was going on in the world around her.

 I think what made Mika so appealing to me is my own history of psychological trauma, plus a history of medical problems that keep me pretty regularly sick. Without going into too much detail, I can safely say that maybe my thinking on the matter is entirely biased and clouded by emotion. M.K. was a person I could see myself in, and when it was first made clear that she was starting to get sick with the same autoimmune condition the other clones were experiencing my heart broke. I don’t know if I fully expected her to succumb to her illness when progress was being made towards a cure, but I expected pain and heartache at least. If she was to die, it would be a dignified death befitting someone who fought in her own way to stay alive and under the radar. She was living outside the control of the ones who created her, but was still living under psychological duress after what had happened to her. It was most definitely a relatable story, as it is one that I live every day (under less dire and conspiratorial circumstances). I wanted so much for her to get closure and freedom in her life.

 With all that being said, this death scene was not okay. That’s what I keep repeating to myself now. It’s the biggest impression I got from the episode. This show advertises as one that respects its characters, but respect is the farthest thing from what she got. There was no respect for Mika’s journey, and there was no dignity in this death. The writers took a Ferdinand, a sad, sexually dysfunctional little man who was responsible for the Helsinki event and had him kill Mika because he was angry with a different clone. It’s a death that strips her of her right as an individual (which is a major theme of the show) and has her die as a stand in for someone else. And she didn’t even struggle. She immediately gave herself up because she was tired of running, and didn’t even try to take him with her. This is such a far cry from the M.K. who almost killed Ferdinand last season, and really begs the question: What could Ferdinand possibly have to offer the show that M.K. couldn’t? Ferdinand didn’t have half of the useful skills that Mika had and any proficiency with murder or intimate knowledge of the conspiracy could be achieved by Helena or Rachel. But M.K. was useful as a hacker, and even beyond having a usefulness to the plot there are those of us with traumatic pasts who really could’ve stood to see her get resolution before her death.

 The funny part of all of this is that now we’re being told that the point of the death is to prove that “nobody is safe” at this point. But we kind of already knew that, didn’t we? This was pure shock value, and shock value has no place in a series that purportedly respects its characters. If writers want to go in the direction of shock value, write slasher films. I promise that a good slasher film requires just as much attention to detail and can be just as much fun. That way, you don’t have to invest any time in characters because we all know they’re not safe and we know the majority of them are going to die horribly - like little humanoid Happy Tree Friends. All I’m saying, really, is that, as Cosima would say, the writers need to admit what this is really about. This was never about proving that nobody is safe. This is because the writers were just...done with her. So they just killed her. In the least respectful manner possible. It tied up no loose ends, it served no real consequence to the plot. Her death wasn’t an immediate call to action nor did it seem to have any effect on the characters beyond proving Kira’s psychic ability (which we’ve all known was a thing) and pushing her towards DYAD for testing (which would have happened anyway). It was just...nothing.

 It could be argued that M.K. giving herself up in Sarah’s place was brave in itself, but it wasn’t brave in a manner that was conducive to her character arc. In fact, this entire episode was antithetical to her character arc. Like I’ve already mentioned, clone disease is treatable. We’ve spent all this time seeing the sisters struggle with it, but there was no time dedicated to Mika’s personal struggle. Even Jennifer had more time post mortem to show us her coming to terms with her mortality. This just felt like one more thing to do to make her suffer, because what other way could they make Mika into a martyr for the cause than to make her too weak to fight? Which, in case you’re wondering, is what she should have done. Accepting her death immediately, before it even came to blows...lifting not a finger or a word in her own defense...It was deeply upsetting. Narratively, extremely sloppy, but personally very unsatisfying. It seemed like something I would do on my worst days. I went through a horrible trauma as a child and also suffer from an immune disorder that frequently makes me very sick. Being mentally and physically sick all the time is exhausting and I could understand why she would end it that way. But I turn to fiction a great deal of the time to see people who are in similar situations do things better than I would have, so that on the days when I want to give up I can point to them and say, ‘Well they didn’t, so I won’t either.’ She should have at least taken him with her. Then Helsinki would have at least been finished, and in death we could have wrapped this up quite neatly. Killing a major player in the event that created her mental trauma would have been a fantastic resolution to her character arc.

 I’m not saying, exactly, that death of a main character isn’t permissible in character-driven stories. When a series handles death well, it can be fantastic. True, in real life death doesn’t always have some kind of grand purpose and is always meaningless. But this is a story, and stories are supposed to have a grander purpose. I understand that we needed to raise the stakes, since this show has almost as many main character resurrections as Buffy (I exaggerate, but you get my point that this is the show where our characters never die). But it could’ve been handled with more respect to the character involved. I also think it was weird timing to kill off a Leda girl this early in the season. Big character deaths normally should be reserved, if not for the finale itself, than for the episodes directly leading up to it. That kind of death puts a show on a more clear narrative trajectory. One of the greatest character deaths in recent history happened on the CW show Nikita when Ryan Fletcher was killed off before the finale. Not only was that a death fitting of his character, but we know things just got real and there is a definite tipping point from which there is no return. I don’t have the same feeling after Mika’s death. I feel like she’s just gone and there’s no real reason for it. But I could be being unfair since there are still 8 episodes to go until the conclusion.

 I’m going to keep watching this show til the end, even after all this. Tatiana Maslany’s performance continues to be that which I aspire to as an actor, and I still feel a deep connection to the characters and an insatiable need to know where it all goes. But this was deeply upsetting, and cannot be forgiven. Please, just, fellow writers, I beg you...Retire the shock value deaths. Put actual thought into your characters and don’t just throw them away like this. Rest in peace, Veera Suominen (AKA M.K., AKA Mika). You didn’t deserve to be reduced to a stand-in for Ferdinand’s frustration with Rachel. You didn’t deserve to die as a representation of someone else. You deserved so much better.

[peanutdracolich]

Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: Ranking Things

So, since we’re halfway through the month I decided I’d vaguely rank things in some way. Of course I must think first on how do I rank them? Personal enjoyment? Fear? Some belief in quality outside of that?

If I were to rank the films upon their artistic merit, the feeling that they are something more than just a film, the work of artifice and dark sorcery The Vampyr wins, it is a piece of art.

If I were to rank the films upon their sheer fear value, the way they cause terror and leave a lingering fear it would be The Descent; it is a thing of terror.

If I were to rank the films upon their sheer enjoyment value, the amount I simply enjoyed their spell and the act of watching it would be Dr Terror's House of Horrors (with Alien Covenant a fairly close second), it was a quite enjoyable film.

I am going to try and rank them as Horror films, though, and that ends up more vague. Fear is a part of horror, but it's not all, the ability to provoke thought is good but it too is far from all. Of course what a horror film is has changed over the years; Frankenstein and The Descent seem to hold very little in common save elements of madness; they seek to invoke very different effects upon the watcher. Still this is my personal ranking and I will rank them as I see fit. (Ranking itself is below the cut)

1)      The Vampyr (32)

2)      The Descent (05)

3)      Dr Terror's House of Horrors (65)

4)      Prince of Darkness (87)

5)      Alien Covenant (17)

6)      The Omen (76)

7)      Poltergeist (82)

8)      Frankenstein (31)

9)      Friday the 13th Part 2 (81)

10)   The 7 Golden Vampires (74)

11)   Child's Play  (88)

12)   Saw (04)

13)   Alien 3 (92)

14)   Uzumaki (00)

So some thoughts…

The Vampyre is a shadow play of darkness and madness, which feels like watching a fever dream. Whether it's the gripping coffin scene, the dance of shadows, or just the general ambience of nightmare, it reaches beyond feelings like fear or intellectual curiosity, and reaches the sublime as the spell wraps your mind in its dark magic. It makes me start spewing pretentious word salad, and I will admit parts of it left me confused as to what was actually going on, yet it felt effective for this and not despite this. It plays upon the purest fears of horror; the unknown and death.

The Descent is brutally effective and gruesome horror. It is a film that leaves one scared. Despite monsters that are pretty much fantasy RPG goblins it uses primal fears of the dark and the enclosed space to good effect, and the nightmare that is the descent into madness adds to the effect. It's nice to see some badass female characters, and I'm sure one could find symbolism and deeper themes in it, but the intensity of the film draws you in and it'd be a waste of the spell to hunt for such things (at least on a first viewing).

Dr Terror's House of Horror is really 6 stories, each a charming one in its own right, making good use of its cast. Each story plays on different fears and elements of horror, and they're nice little tales. If I had to choose a single 'fear' within it, it'd be fear of the future.

Prince of Darkness is a cheesy, campy, 80s film. It's good and enjoyable, but it's no masterpiece by any means. It is a horror movie. I do not expect a masterpiece from it. I expect a fun film, some scares, some atmosphere, and it does deliver these things. Plus a free porn stash as a bonus! In earnest, though, it has a nice little plot that mixes metaphysics and science to create a dose of horror, and a score that is quite effectively used (as one expects from Carpenter after Halloween and The Thing). It is limited, though, by the overall quality of the plot, and the 80s cheesy feel of the film (which I enjoy) limits its horror. Bonus points for Alice Cooper as an honestly creepy homeless dude.

Alien Covenant is… It's a film with a lot of built in baggage as a prequel to Alien, a sequel to Prometheus, and part of the same franchise as Aliens. It has its strengths, the xenomorph while not terrifying as in Alien is at least scary once more, breaking part of the effect of Aliens by showing that it is not as weak and easily handled as that film made them out to be, an effective movie monster worth a dozen crawlers (it's a good thing that an individual crawler wasn't supposed to be scary). For that alone I could love the film, because the xenomorph is probably my all-time favorite movie monster and it is a shame that it has been neutered thus for so long. That said the film is too new to go into my full thoughts of the pros and cons of it without going 'spoilers, spoilers', I'm fairly sure things about it have probably been spoiled (I actually actively avoided them here but still managed to pick up a few) but still… So umm… Spoilers spoilers. The biggest flaw to me is simply the ear homing black goo. It's stupid and should feel dumb. The next would be their decision to fly into the storm, but that's a standard horror thing (I do not blame them for the detour to check out the world, but they showed they had time leeway they could have waited a few days for the storm to clear so they could check it out safely). However its true sin is my favorite thing in the movie so… The xenomorph is a side dish of horror. David, man's creation, is the main dish as a charismatic psychopath in the lineage of Norman Bates. I found this a chance for some stirring scenes between the two androids, some things that make me want to rewatch and really think about creator and created, while also finding the reveal of his laboratory delightfully macabre and fascinating. I enjoyed David as a villain, with Michael Fassbender bringing some excellent charisma to the role along with that of Walter. Daniels, as a replacement Ripley, was disappointing because she failed to fill the original's shoes (much like Elizabeth in Prometheus). It was fun, though, to see the Frankensteinian tale taken onto multiple levels at once (Prometheus tried this but Prometheus was just bad), and I enjoyed the two flavors of horror being mixed together to create something different (those flavors being 'the monster' and 'the psycho'. Oh and what we're supposed to fear in Covenant is the magical homing powers of black goo… or more the power of creation and the creation's power. David is the creation of man, but the creation with power to destroy his creators; the Engineers are destroyed by their own creation at the hand of their other creation's creation; David himself is shocked and momentarily afraid when the xenomorph threatens the camera, unlike the neomorph it is not a thing he can actually control. Fear the creation which surpasses the creator. Spoiler time ends here if you care. All in all Covenant may in ways be my favorite film on the list, and does scary better than many above it, but in the end my enjoyment of it is not as a horror film but at least equal parts science fiction (Alien conversely is like 3 to 1 horror and sci fi) and so judged as a Horror film I must deduct points.

The Omen was… I still hold to what I said at the time. It was just above middling in all things. The film was enjoyable, it worked as horror, and I might eventually rewatch it. Still it was not one to leave a long impact. I watched it. I enjoyed it. It in no way changed my fears or lack thereof about the Antichrist.

Poltergeist was one of the hardest films to place. I watched it with intestinal pain and 2 hours of pausing so it was a horrible watching condition. Still the film helped lighten the mood, and ok in a lot of ways I'm judging it from prior viewings. It has, for its time, nice effects, some scary moments (I think bodily reactions were off at the time), and an enjoyable story. Still I'd feel uncomfortable calling it good, and the films below it all fall under varying levels of 'enjoyable but' or 'I didn't like it'.

Frankenstein… A horror classic and along with Poltergeist the hardest film on this list to place. I feel like I am committing some sin by saying… I didn't like it that much. It had its charm, and its place, but I was not marvelously impressed. Vampyr, made a year later, was a much more terrifying tale (even if it confused me), and it lacks the gripping questions of the original book; what is the relation of Creator and Created and what ought it to be, what is man's right to create. It is in fact probably the worst Frankenstein film I've watched this month as far as invoking the original book's message and effect, and the others are not a Frankenstein film and Young Frankenstein. That said the movie does has its charm, was enjoyable, and honestly Boris Karloff lurching awkwardly is more menacing and terrifying than anything in the films that follow (save perhaps Alien 3). Still its placement may be more to do with its place in movie history than its actual quality and I do try to avoid that, just as I try to avoid judging special effects based upon later standards, or clichés either. Still I feel it was a better movie than the ones below it, even if some played to my personal tastes more.

Friday the 13th Part 2 was a film that was so bad it's good. I think. It had me laughing. Perhaps it's simply I am not that scared of farmers. If I was as afraid of farmers as I am afraid of chickens, cellars, well done music, green jello, TVs, the dark, or any of various other things it might have been scary. That is if they had remembered that the flat of a blade isn't a cutting tool, not to directly rub my nose in the fact that your plot is a giant plot hole, and… The film was trying at least. Still the change to the hockey mask was a good move on Jason's part. Honestly, though, rated purely for enjoyment this beat Frankenstein.

The Seven Golden Vampires: I enjoyed this film almost the exact same as Ft13 part 2. I think though that for those who enjoy what Ft13 part 2 is offering it has a higher maximum enjoyment factor. The Seven Golden Vampires promised a B movie about kung fu vampires with Peter Cushing and it delivered a B movie about Kung Fu vampires with Peter Cushing. It was not a good film. It was not a gloriously bad film which Ft13 part 2 was, but it was fun enough for what it was. Still only one of these was actually trying to be a horror film in more than the lightest trappings, and I'd say I enjoyed this film almost as much as anyone, whereas Ft13 part 2 was less my type of film.

Child's Play: So here we get into films I did not enjoy (with the exception of Alien 3 but that's just because xenomorph). Child's Play was scarier than either of the films before it. It was a better movie than Ft13 part 2 except that in being better it was worse. Ft13 part 2 was fun to laugh at (not with but at), and enjoyable because it was bad and it was supposed to be scary and it was failing. Child's Play had elements of that, but was just a bit too good to hit that sweet spot. I can see why someone might like it, I like bad vampire movies, but it doesn't hit me well, and I can't say it's good even when I try and step back from personal preferences.

Saw: I feel guilty for not liking this film. Partially because I worry about prejudice against it due to reputation. But the thing is it didn't live up to its reputation at all in any respect or either of its disparate reputations. It was not the gruesome and bile fascination fueled torture porn I dreaded. It was not the cerebral murder room horror with well-played twists I had heard it portrayed as. It was a poorly done murder room horror with twists that played out more as sudden bouts of too dumb to live than anything else. It invited me, nay demanded that I think about it, and ultimately it didn't hold up to focused attention or thought. Even to a person who loves murder rooms I can't suggest it, because it was not ultimately a good one. It might be the first for all I know (it's older than most I know of) but that doesn't save it from not being well executed.

Alien 3: Unlike Friday the 13th Part 2 this ought to have been my type of film and honestly… It was. The film is docked points for only being horror for about half the film, though, and docked points for being too long. It dragged on past its welcome. It was ultimately less enjoyable than Ft13 part 2 and only worth watching because it is an Alien film. So while I enjoyed it more than Child's Play or Saw, I have to place it below them both. I enjoyed it despite its lack of quality due to Ripley and the xenomorph; it does not stand at all on its own merits.

Uzumaki: In the manga we are presented with a Lovecraftian horror, a thing that resonated on a deep level with spirals, that was on a spiritual level a spiral which pulled in, sucking and devouring like a whirlpool. It was a series of stories all thematically connected to spirals which were scary not because Ooooh spiral but because they were creepy things of horror. The film had none of that. The side stories which made the story were gutted for the main story which itself wasn't developed leaving an empty shell. The film was bad. Read the manga.

 Before I finish let's stop and see what we're supposed to be afraid of in each film. In Vampyr we're supposed to be afraid of shadows… That's supposed to be a joke but it's honest as well, more than the vampiress it's the shadows which are scary the dance of real and unreal. In the Descent we're supposed to be afraid of the dark… Well ok it's more about being closed in the dark the descent into the cave representative of Sarah's descent into madness, the darkness and closing in of the mind as one recoils from trauma mirrored by the darkness and madness of the fight against the crawlers, the dark is what we fear but the film is more than that. Darn it this is supposed to be me joking and not being serious. Dr Terror's House of Horrors is fear of Tarot Cards… for they represent the future and the danger that fate may hold for us and that one fate all men cannot avoid. Prince of Darkness is fear of music… really the score is most of the source of fear there, though it brings in Lovecraftian themes of the fear of revelations about the underlying nature of reality that science opens to us and shows how the universe may at any time kill us. Alien Covenant is I feel guilty saying this one's as it's too new so it's above in the spoiler part. The Omen is fear of adopted children… or the Biblical apocalypse with elements of a more general fear of fate for it protects Damien. Poltergeist is fear of the TV… That's not a joke answer, there's a lot of the TV dominating their lives and pulling the family apart (seen mostly with the husband's own preponderance to pay it worship) and more than ghosts it is the fear of a family torn asunder that plays upon us. Frankenstein was fear of fear itself… Ok the honest one was fear of Boris Karloff, but the intro's warning of how scary it was actually served as good primer to let yourself be afraid except the movie wasn't scary. Friday the 13th Part 2 was fear of farmers… I'm sticking with fear of farmers. The 7 Golden Vampires was fear of Kung Fu Dracula… don't expect that to change. Child's Play is fear of dolls… more seriously it's mainly fear of your child being hurt. Saw was fear of puzzles… ok really it was more… the moral dilemma of do you break under the pressure or stand firm. Alien 3 was fear of the xenomorph… Seriously it was banking on the preexisting fear of the specific monster. Uzumaki was fear of nothing for there was nothing in it to fear (ok it was fear of spirals but). Now of course this is sort of tongue and cheek. But really they do fall into certain types of horror. Vampyr is the fever dream, a classic part of Dracula and Frankenstein (the books) the biggest horror in either. The Descent is the monster movie combined with extreme brutality and blood for intensity, and the themes of madness to dig just a little deeper and give a cerebral bite. Dr Terror's uses different things in different tales but most are supernatural monster stories, the finer aspects would ruin the individual stories (as forecast as the twists are), and one is nature rebels which is a type of horror film. Prince of Darkness is a cosmic horror story combined with elements of haunted house and zombie. The Omen is harder for me to classify my first thought is that it's sort of cosmic horror as well, Damien is destined to win and cause the apocalypse, but we are far too special to god in it for traditional cosmic horror, I'm going to say 'Christian horror' with elements of the classic changeling story. Poltergeist is a haunted house tale. Frankenstein is a monster movie, theoretically the same type as Alien 3, Child's Play, Vampyre, and many others (it's a broad category) but really like Alien 3 and Child's Play it's a pretty pure monster movie (Alien 3 is also action/sci-fi but as a horror tale). Friday the 13th is a Slasher flic using a Psycho Killer. The 7 Golden Vampires is a Vampire film. Saw is a murder room; people are trapped in a room by a madman and must kill each other to escape, it's a nice story concept. Uzumaki is creep/weirdness as horror, though the manga moves into cosmic horror territory it's not there in the movie.

[shaizstern]

Article from WSJ: The Challenge of Jewish Repentance

The paired holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur pose a tough theological question: not how we continue to have faith in God but how He continues to have faith in us

On Rosh Hashanah, the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, announces that God’s court is in session, writes the author. PHOTO: JOHN KUNTZ/THE PLAIN DEALER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Jonathan Sacks

The Ten Days of Repentance are the holy of holies of Jewish time. They begin this Wednesday evening with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and culminate 10 days later with Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement. At no other time do I feel so close to God, and I suspect the same is true for most Jews.

These days constitute a courtroom drama like no other. The judge is God himself, and we are on trial for our lives. It begins on Rosh Hashanah, with the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, announcing that the court is in session. The Book of Life, in which our fate will be inscribed, now lies open. As we say in prayer, “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who will live and who will die.” At home, we eat an apple dipped in honey as a symbol of our hope for a sweet new year.

On Yom Kippur, the atmosphere reaches a peak of intensity in a day of fasting and prayer. Repeatedly we confess our sins, whole alphabetical litanies of them, including ones we probably had neither the time nor the imagination to commit. We throw ourselves on the mercy of the court, which is to say, on God himself. Write us, we say, in the Book of Life.

And at the end of a long and wrenching day, we finish as we began 10 days earlier, with the sound of the ram’s horn—this time not with tears and fears but with cautious yet confident hope. We have admitted the worst about ourselves and survived.

Beneath the surface of this long religious ritual lies one of the more transformative stories of the human spirit. The sociologist Philip Rieff pointed out that the movement from paganism to monotheism was a transition from fate to faith. By this he meant that in the world of myth, people were pitted against powerful, capricious forces personified as gods who were at best indifferent, at worst hostile, to humankind. All you could do was try to propitiate, battle or outwit them. This was a culture of character and fate, and its noblest expression was the literature of Greek tragedy.

Jews came to see the world in a completely different way. The book of Genesis opens with God making humans “in his image and likeness.” This phrase has become so familiar to us that we forget how paradoxical it is, since for the Hebrew Bible, God has no image and likeness. As the narrative quickly makes clear, what humans have in common with God is freedom and moral responsibility.

The Jewish drama is less about character and fate than about will and choice. To the monotheistic mind, the real battles are not “out there,” against external forces of darkness, but “in here,” between the bad and better angels of our nature. As the religion writer Jack Miles once pointed out, you can see the difference in the contrast between Sophocles and Shakespeare. For Sophocles, Oedipus must battle against blind, inexorable fate. For Shakespeare, writing in a monotheistic age, the drama of “Hamlet” lies within, between “the native hue of resolution” and “the pale cast of thought.”

The trouble is, of course, that faced with choice, we often make the wrong one. Given a second chance, Adam and Eve would probably pass on the fruit. Cain might work a little harder on his anger management. And there is a straight line from these biblical episodes to the destruction left by Homo sapiens: war, murder, human devastation and environmental destruction.

That is still our world today. The key fact about us, according to the Bible, is that uniquely in an otherwise law-governed universe, we are able to break the law—a power that we too often relish exercising.

This raises an acute theological dilemma. How are we to reconcile God’s high hopes for humanity with our shabby and threadbare moral record? The short answer is forgiveness.

Rabbi Joshua Hearshen blesses children as they dip apples into honey—a traditional way of symbolizing hopes for a sweet new year—during a family service at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, St. Petersburg, Fla., Sept. 2013. PHOTO: WILL VRAGOVIC/THE TAMPA BAY TIMES/ASSOCIATED PRESS

God wrote forgiveness into the script. He always gives us a second chance, and more. All we have to do is to acknowledge our wrongs, apologize, make amends and resolve to behave better, and God forgives. It allows us to hold simultaneously to the highest moral aspirations while admitting honestly our deepest moral failings. That is the drama of the Jewish High Holy Days.

At the heart of this vision is what the post-Holocaust writer Viktor Frankl called our “search for meaning.” The great institutions of modernity were not constructed to provide meaning. Science tells us how the world came to be but not why. Technology gives us power but cannot tell us how to use it. The market gives us choices but no guidance as to which choices to make. Modern democracies give us a maximum of personal freedom but a minimum of shared morality. You can acknowledge the beauty of all these institutions, yet most of us seek something more.

Meaning comes not from systems of thought but from stories, and the Jewish story is among the most unusual of all. It tells us that God sought to make us His partners in the work of creation, but we repeatedly disappointed Him. Yet He never gives up. He forgives us time and again. The real religious mystery for Judaism is not our faith in God but God’s faith in us.

This is not, as atheists and skeptics sometimes claim, a comforting fiction but quite the opposite. Judaism is God’s call to human responsibility, to create a world that is a worthy home for His presence. That is why Jews are so often to be found as doctors fighting disease, economists fighting poverty, lawyers fighting injustice, teachers fighting ignorance and therapists fighting depression and despair.

Judaism is a supremely activist faith for which the greatest religious challenge is to heal some of the wounds of our deeply fractured world. As Frankl put it: The real question is not what do we want from life but what does life want from us.

‘You may have been a success, but have you also been a blessing?’

That is the question we are asked on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As we ask God to write us in the Book of Life, he asks us, what have you done with your life thus far? Have you thought about others or only about yourself? Have you brought healing to a place of human pain or hope where you found despair? You may have been a success, but have you also been a blessing? Have you written other people in the Book of Life?

To ask these questions once a year in the company of others publicly willing to confess their faults, lifted by the words and music of ancient prayers, knowing that God forgives every failure we acknowledge as a failure, and that He has faith in us even when we lose faith in ourselves, can be a life-changing experience. That is when we discover that, even in a secular age, God is still there, open to us whenever we are willing to open ourselves to Him.

—Lord Sacks, the 2016 Templeton Prize laureate, is the former chief rabbi of the U.K. and the Commonwealth. The most recent of his many books is “Ceremony and Celebration: An Introduction to the Holidays” (Maggid Books).

[krissysbookshelf]

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