#like. fuck. that quote from james lance

[rizavii]

my writing plans!

this list will be updated regularly. if something was here before, but isn't any more, i've most likely finished and published it! feel free to ask or check my ao3 :)

feel free to ask me about any of these ideas! i <3 talking about them :)

AI Allura AU (wip) Allura is killed in the attack on Altea, and saved in the same was Alfor was. Alfor is alive instead.

Max Ride AU (aka wingfic) (wip) A feel-good, plotless fic with none of the actual Max Ride drama <3

like they'll never fall down (wip) A post-Kerberos fic about Keith, written from finish to start

would i run off the world someday? (wip) Lance feels untethered in the wake of battle, and Hunk helps him back to the ground.

interstate 75 (wip) The paladins (plus Allura and Lotor) survived an intergalactic war, so surely they can survive a seven-hour road trip. Right?

guardian angel (wip) idk how to describe this ok it's just Projection Central

Krolia and the ice cream shop (wip) One part Krolia & Keith fic, one part Keith/Hunk fic. It starts, as many good things do, with a trip to a local sweets shop.

my, what big teeth you have! (wip) Lance's new roommate is not a vampire, because vampires aren't real. Lotor taking the evening classes, having pointy teeth, and talking like a Shakespeare character doesn't mean a thing!

missing out, missing you (wip) Adam's side, from Earth.

and the universe said i love you because you are love (wip) a minecraft au series!

Honerva, Zarkon, and Lotor in the afterlife

Allura/Hunk/Lance/Keith after the war

5 times someone thought Keith might be more than human, and one time they found out he was

T4T Allurance

Five times Hunk makes someone's comfort food, and one time someone makes his

Allura has been dead from the beginning

Shiro is bad at cooking but make it OCD flavored

Hunk meets the family (families? idk, Hunk/Keith/Lance)

Keith vs James

Kallura Galtean Princess/Knight AU (keith gets to kill someone with his teeth)

Lotor ft “notre dame” by paris paloma

Lotureith where lotor and allura absolutely shower Keith in gifts <3

Keith with an Older Sister

Shiro finds a child idk man I just like kid fics

Shiro is a vampire, Keith is autistic, they're both dumb as rocks

Lance and Coran think about home together

Adam and Keith after Kerberos (idea by the little worm I call a sibling <3)

5 times Hunk got food at a local gas station in the middle of the night, and 1 time he didnt (ty leo)

Allura breakdown <33

Lotor cuts his hair after the war

Betting on who’d get into a fight

Lotor eats one of Allura’s mice

Galran courtship is just mutual stalking

Keitor with a lil kid bc they deserve one

Lotura to the quote, "If I've got to suffer, it may as well be at your hands, your pretty hands."

Qpp kallura but they’re super affectionate and everyone thinks they’re dating

BOM Lotor but during the trials he sees Honerva

Idfk just something krolivan i wanna write them

Mansplain Manipulate Manwhore

Keitor but they have tails (fuck you LSP i hate all of you guys)

Keith post-kerb to the quote "I was fifteen when you left and I have been fifteen ever since."

[aston14s]

The Perfect Pair- Fernando Alonso/ Fem! Reader

— DESCRIPTION: on a random friday night, fernando got a message from his supposed “blind date”.

P2: Los Aliens Son Reales

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Lance is now absolutely losing his mind and spamming Fernando’s phone but the older driver just closed his phone pretending that his phone’s not buzzing at all. Now that he’s chosen an outfit— the one’s Lance did not chose to be exact, he now lay down on his bed calming down his nerves for his date tomorrow. What did he even gotten himself into?

Despite the fact that his anxiety is through the roof, he can’t help but smile to the thought that he’s actually going on a date. What is she’s going to be like? Does she likes pastas that’s why she requested the Blańc? Does she thinks Greese is cool? Does she likes bands? He doesn’t even met her yet but he’s thinking about her already. He buried his face on a pile of pillows to drown out his thoughts (not that it helped anyway). He’s acting like a teenager on his first date and it’s making him feel appalled.

Fernando looks at his clock and it says 7:00. The restaurant is just 30 minutes away from his place but he hopped on his car already— afraid to be late to his date. He was about to put his key on the ignition when he received a message.

This is getting too real now. He let out a nervous breath as he drove away from his house. Before going to the restaurant he decided to buy some flowers for her. It’s already 7:50 when he got to the restaurant. He was about to message Lex to ask her about her whereabouts when he accidentally bumped into someone, Fernando dropped his phone and the stranger picked it up for him. “Oh, I am really sorry” you said, scrambling giving him his phone. “No, no. My fault for not looking anyway.” Fernando said. You were about to give back his phone but you saw what’s flashed on the screen, it’s your text messages. “So, you are James?” you asked. “Sorry?” Fernando said staring at you confused. He now saw how you looked like.

And you looked… really pretty.

Your hair is perfectly tied on a knot, showing your beautiful eyes, and your perfect complexion. An angel in disguise, he thought. Fernando was about to zone out but you spoke again. “I’m Lex, sorry if I asked Ali for your name already. I mean it’s just fair since you know mine, anyway.” you said. “Oh! Yeah. I’m James. Nice to meet you.” Fernando, or James said. He’s too deep on this lie now to chicken out now. Identify theft pfft, what is that?

After a few moments you and James are now seated on a table beside a large window. You stare at the view admiring the beauty of Oviedo. After a few seconds of silence you move your head on his direction. “I don’t really do this often, sorry if I’m being awkward or anything.” you said apologetically. “No, you are being perfect. Don’t worry at all.” James told you. You saw how his eyes glisten while he talks to you. He’s quite handsome, you thought. He is also a bit older for your age but you didn’t really quite mind. Ali is quite the matchmaker.

While waiting for the food, James started a conversation. Surprisingly, he did not asked what your favourite colour is. Which is rare. Instead he asked you if you believe in aliens, you said no, giving him all the same old reason, saying that it’s just fictional and there is no evidence of it. “What?! Fictional? No. The universe is complex. And it’s really really huge. To think that aliens doesn’t exists is kind of crazy. And no evidence? Do you not know about the USS Nimitz 2004 where they saw and I quote “an unidentified flying white object, without wings, and no rosters” What else could it be? A UFO! Es un maldito, UFO! Los extraterrestres son definitivamente reales. (it’s a fucking UFO. aliens are definitely real.) You chuckled at how passionate he is about it. He’s been geeking about aliens for quite some time now, he only realized when a waiter served you your food. “Oh. I’m sorry I think I rambled too much about UFO’s and aliens and stuffs.” He said embarrassed. “Don’t be. I enjoyed it. I might actually believe in aliens now.” you told him, giving him a huge smile.

After a few moments it’s now your turn to talk, “Yeah, my name is actually Alexandra Alegra Camille Adriana Montelle Gonźalez.” you said to him. You can hear him choke from the wine he’s drinking. You let out a small laugh from his reaction. “It’s like your parents couldn’t choose from all the baby names they prepared and just used everything!” he said jokingly. “I know right?! Writing all that before in all my school paper is such an experience.” You can see him let out a laugh of his own. “I must say, Adriana is a pretty name.” “Only a few loved ones calls me that. I guess you can be one of them.”

The date went better than you expected. You were worried that you would do something to ruin it but James made sure that you are comfortable and heard. He was interested in every word that you says. It’s cute how focused he is listening to all your silly thoughts. He also promised that he will watch your favourite movie so that you’ll have something to talk about on the next date. Next date already, huh? You are happy to know that he enjoyed the night just like you did. It was 11:30 pm when you bid goodbye to him. As much as you want to spend more time with him, it’s already late and you wanted to give him a rest as well. He offered to give you a ride home, you declined it but gave in after a few (a lot) of convincing from him.

The ride home was silent, not the awkward kind though. It’s a comfortable silent. The silence after a tiring yet good time. Summer Nights started playing on the radio. “I love this song!” you exclaimed, turning up the volume. You sang along to the song while James hummed with you. It’s a perfect end to the night.

“Thank you for the ride, James.” you said, while giving him a hug. “Mmhm, have a good night, Adi.” You smiled at your new nickname and gave him a last good bye.

As Fernando walks to his car he couldn’t help but jump in joy. Such a perfect night, indeed.

nano_alo

liked by lstrolly, dannyr3, and 34 others

nano_alo i guess she liked the flowers

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lstrolly WTF OLD MAN ARE U CHEATING ON ME?!

↳ leosdad WHAT???

↳ nano_alo @leosdad don’t listen to him, the kid is kind of you know…

lstrolly SO THIS IS WHY U ARE NOT REPLYING TO MY MESSAGES

lstrolly i hate you so much

↳ dannyr3 nando please reply to lance asap, he is crying on face time. it’s not a good sight to see.

Note: Waahhh, second chapter !! Enjoyed writing this. I just think he believes in aliens because hello?! Nano is an alien 😔 *cue E.T. by toy-box*

[singaroundelay]

Because I have nothing but time on my hands and I've watched S3 so many times due to fics, let's take a look here at some lovely pull quotes from that James Lance article, shall we??

Just Trent Crimm. Acting totally normal around his crush.

All he wants is Ted’s approval. And to be noticed and loved in return.

But, what I will say is that I felt that in certainly in season three, no, he doesn’t have a relationship. But he is lightly dating.

Trent’s lightly dating but I wager if a certain American crossed his path again… (Take your daughter and get thee to Kansas, Trent.)

Which, uh, canonically… this means Trent really was thinking about kissing Ted.

Makes a person wonder, since he was in the coach's dugout — and watched Ted catch someone offsides even before the linesman did, just how close did Trent come to kissing Ted?

So, if you ask me...

If you could have heard what happened inside Trent, I think his heart just went and (he mimes an explosion). The plug was pulled in terms of him taking Ted down. 

That was the exact moment his heart went BOOM.

As we have said all along, this man had the biggest crush on Ted.

 ...and then he sheds his journalistic ethics because he wants to be a human more than he wants the profession.And I love that when he did that season two, it’s like he just blows his career up because he wants to look after a lovely human being, i.e. Ted.

Seriously, I’m of the age of having to squint and turn my head to the side in order to see anything remotely queer for my ships. Knowing full well I was willing things into existence that definitely weren't there. It's why even to just have Trent's chat with Colin at the Homomonument felt like such a "win".

But now — to know that every smile and wink and action, especially after "love our chats" was done on purpose? That it was all James' acting choices and his desire to have Trent fall for this American that he was supposed to eviscerate?

As the kids would say: my crops have been watered and my skin is clear.

At this point, I don't care if it's unrequited love on Trent's part. For the first time in my many years of fandom, all my head tilting and squinting wasn't needed.

Because it's fucking canon.

[danielfuckingricciardo]

F1 Drivers x The Thick of It Quotes

Rewatched TTOI again and Malcolm Tucker’s quotes are just too iconic so I had to do something with them!

So here’s a collection of incorrect quotes pretty much showing that Max more than anyone else in the paddock is incredibly Malcolm Tucker-coded

Tw: Lots of swearing, suicide discussion, violence discussion

Charles (about Xavi): No, he’s useless. He’s absolutely useless. He is, he’s useless, he’s as useless as a marzipan dildo. Alright. Got to go. Xavi’s just walked in.

———

Max: How fucked am I?

Daniel: Well, you look awful, you look terrible. I mean, you often look quite bad, but…

Max: I mean, in terms of negative publicity. On the fuckometer, where am I?

Charles: Oh, 12.

Daniel: Yeah. 12, say.

Max: Out of what?

Charles: Er… 50.

Daniel: Oh, mine was out of ten.

Max: Right, (to Charles) so I’m 24% fucked according to you, (to Daniel) but according to you I’m 120% fucked?

———

Daniel: Did you see the news?

Max: NoMFuP.

Daniel: Eh?

Max: NoMFuP, N-O-M-F-U-P, Not My Fucking Problem - I quite liked that, did you like that?

Daniel: Yeah, it’s very good.

Max: I think I’ll use that quite a lot today.

Daniel: I’ll use it as well.

———

Max: (knock at the door) Come the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off.

———

(Max, Daniel and Checo are looking down at the atrium of a new building from their floor.)

Daniel: Good spot for a suicide, this, I would think: good long drop, appreciative audience.

Max: What if you just broke your back? You know, you’d be paralysed for life and they you’d still be depressed about the thing that was depressing you in the first place.

Checo: What are these, um, hangy-down things?

Daniel: Oh, they’re acoustic baffles, they stop it getting too echoey in here.

Max: So when you’re breaking your back, nobody can hear you screaming?

Daniel: Well, that is the kind of attention to detail that you get in an FIA building.

Christian Horner: (Spotting them from the ground floor) HEY! GET BACK TO WORK, ALL OF YOU!

———

Charles: Christ, Max, how do you appear out of nowhere in a building entirely made of glass?

Max: I’m a shape-shifter.

———

Max: Hey, I’m going to have a swear box installed on Monday.

Checo: What?

Max: Fucking joking, you twat! I’m on turbo.

———

Max: (To Charles) Hey, what’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve shat a Lego garage or Something.

———

Lance: Do you know, Fernando? Er, the best way to clear a paper jam?

Fernando: I don’t know, Kill a kid an hour until it sorts itself out?

———

Daniel: Afternoon, gentlemen! I heard there were sandwiches and I’m a fucker for cress - no, no, no, please don’t get up, I’m not viagra.

———

Max: Get over here, now. Might be advisable to wear brown trousers, and a shirt the colour of blood.

———

Daniel (about McLaren): Right, when I came into this team I thought, 'OK. Let's turn a fresh page.' So I turned a fresh page, and you collectively have drawn a gigantic fucking cock on it!

———

Esteban (about Mick): We're like Dick and Dom, aren't we? Great chemistry.

Lance: Yeah. Except neither one of you are Doms.

———

Toto: When the Red Bull drivers are here, you tell them nothing except where the toilets are, but you lie about that. And George, keep your tits in.

———

Max: Oi! Oi! James fucking May! It was you who sprayed the private information about the cost cap, wasn't it?! Like Jenson Button shaking up a magnum of piss!

———

Alex: Do you channel all your passions into pie charts, George? I don't even think you're excited about winning. I bet when you orgasm, you just put a little tick on a chart next to your bed.

———

Charles: Happy Birthday, Max.

Max: Stop saying that, right? Just you go home. What is this? Don't...Is this my new anal beads?

(Max looks at the box)

Max: Okay, this has been X-rayed, yeah? I'm not gonna get fucking, a present bomb in the face?

(Max opens the box. It contains a cake which reads 'Happy Birthday Cunt')

Max: This could be from anybody. (opens the accompanying card) Ah, it's from Checo. This is fucking Checo’s idea of a joke, yeah? And he wonders why we don't let him out in public.

Max: (leaving the paddock later that day) It's my birthday! (Offering Yuki a piece of cake) Cunt cake? Go ahead!

———

Fernando: (to Lance) Have you been in the paddock lately? Jesus, it's like the break-up of the Beatles, right? During the fall of the Roman Empire, while fucking Jordan's getting divorced from that bloke. All happening at the same time in a tiny fucking area, yeah?

———

Lando: Look at this! Takeaway and a fight. All I need now is a handjob in a bus shelter, I've had the great British night out.

———

Lando: Jesus, you're about as on the ball today as a dead seal!

Daniel: Hey, that's one of my fucking lines!

———

Max: Checo, I thought we had a deal, right? When I need your advice I'll give you the special signal, which is me being sectioned under the fucking Mental Health Act.

———

Daniel: (to Max) Good holiday?

Max: Shut it, you fucking hairdresser.

Checo: (to Max) Got any photos?

Max: I've got a photo of you in a minute with your cock nailed to the desk.

———

Max: (answering a knock at his door) Listen, if you are not a prostitute or a pizza guy, fuck off! (to Checo) Checo, listen, could you eat or fuck whatever's at the door on your fucking way out, please?

———

Max: (On the phone to Christian) How can I be held responsible? What, for what? I've created a what around the paddock? I've created a vibe? Listen, son, the only fucking vibe you have to worry about is the one that your wife hides in her knicker drawer.

———

Charles: Well done Max

George: He's very impressive, isn't he? In the way that, you know, Chairman Mao was actually quite impressive.

Lewis: Well that's the thing about the evil, isn't it, their amazing work ethic.

———

Max: Forgive and forget. That's my motto.

Daniel: I thought your motto was 'Who fucks wins' or 'Honi soit qui Max y fuck'.

———

Sebastian: OK people, I'd like to start this session with a question: when is a party not a party?

Fernando: When it's at your house?

———

Fernando: I'm on my own here, there's no one quite like me. Not here, not any more.

Lance: Yeah. You're the last VHS in Oxfam. They won't take them anymore, I've tried. Seasons 1 to 5 of The X-Files, nothing, can't give them away.

———

Daniel: (on the phone to Charles) You are not going to try and talk me down off a ledge, are you? Because, I've got to tell you, I'm really tired and the pavement looks like a nice, warm, splatty bed right now.

———

[statticscribbles]

Ghost

Summary: Kurtz/Reader Request: using the song Ghost by Jacob Lee

You nudge the window open, letting the sound of the rain offset the music you have faintly playing. You pull the book closer to you, balancing your notebook on the chairs arm as you scribble notes and quote ideas for your english essay. You frown when you smell smoke wrinkling your nose as you stand on the chair about to close the window. You hesitate when you hear talking, nervous about being spotted, you don’t think anyone who’s out back behind the school smoking wants some random person eavesdropping.

You catch the eye of the figure under the window, when you stick your arm out to close it. “Hey there.” You don’t say anything closing the window sharply; you can hear his laugh muffled now; your face heats up as you try to shake the thought of his smile. You focus back to your book not moving when the bell rings and ignoring the look from the librarian. You knows she won’t actually kick you out. You’re distracted, humming even though your playlist ended hours ago and you’re halfway through the last chapter when a hand nudges it out of your grip, folding over the corner. “Missing lunch isn’t healthy.” You freeze at the voice from the boy under the window.

“Kurtz.” He smiles again holding his hand out. You smile back shaking it. “This is where you tell me your name..” He nods and you jerk back as the Ghoulies pull him away from you. “Kurtz come on; Lance said the Serpent’s are itching for a fight. You can play later.” James, one of the head Ghoulies shoves him towards the door. He nods turning from you; you watch his smile replaced by a frown and brush it off as him being upset about however he was going to play, you shiver at the implication and tuck your book into your bag; deciding to take his advice and make your way to the lunch room. You settle for breezing by it, hearing the screaming and laughing; you know there’s at least one fight happening.

You keep your head down like usual. Staying in the library whenever you get the chance. You keep the window open where you sit; refusing to admit to yourself you’re hoping to hear more of Kurtz, to find an excuse to talk to him. You catch him smoking and each time he offers you a half smile rolling his eyes when you jerk the window closed. He’d been sick the past few days, or maybe the rain had been too heavy, whatever reason he wasn’t at his usual spot and you tried to mask your disappointment.

You watch a figure stumble in, soaked and dripping on the carpet you watch as they stagger towards the back, near the computer room. You think you can hear them muffle a scream. You stand and move towards the room they most likely went into. You step through the doors watching nervously as a figure slumped against one of the tables looks up. “Hey.” You frown at how his voice slurs, you wince as you notice the blood on the side of his cheek. “Don’t worry about it, from the fight in the cafeteria.” “That was weeks ago.” You speak and he smiles wincing as you can see the cut on his cheek reopens. “Kurtz, what happened?” “Nothing.” He leans forward, letting your hand brush against his cheek. “Let me help?” You half question, pulling a cloth out and wiping is carefully against his cheek. “Sorry it’s not the best, but that doesn’t look near as bad with that blood gone.” You assure him and he nods. “Thank you.”

“Y/n. Are you alright? I thought I heard you scream earlier, was that just the pain?” “Yeah pain.” He seems to tense, you can see it in his shoulders. You nod to him, trying to convey you wont talk more about it. “It’s nothing just a stupid Ghoul thing.” You hum slightly nodding for him to continue. “Part of being with them. Have to go against one of the higher members at random times. Lance thought it’d be funny to throw me against Shank.” “Shank?” “No one you should concern yourself with.” “Most would say the same about you, you know that right?” He laughs nodding. “You want me to look at that later today?” “You trying to ask to come over?” You look to the ground nodding. “If you want.” “We got partnered on that history project anyways.” “History project?” “Yeah if you ever went to class you’d know.” “I go to class, sometimes.” He laughs and you can’t help but smile with pride.

You’re standing by the flag pole nervously watching the group of Ghoulies, you can tell they’re waiting for someone, and when Kurtz steps out they straighten up. Seeing his back you manage to get a proper look at the jacket he sports, black leather all the way around, a few studs against the back, around the patch of a skull wrapped with chains. You frown at the Ghoul mark but wait wondering if he’s going to turn. He doesn’t but you can see him talking, pointing back towards the school. One of the ghouls nods towards you and you look away, you can see Kurtz look back at you and nod, the other Ghoulies shaking there heads and pulling him away. You can see him pull back from them and you try your best not to look to hopeful when he turns towards you. One of them reaches out and tugs him back, looping there arm around him and grinning darkly at you. You can feel a hand on your shoulder once Kurtz disappears from your vision. “He’s useless to concern yourself with.” Is hissed into your ear, by the time you turn to where the voice comes from you’re alone by the flag pole once more.

You watch Kurtz closer after that, you fingers drumming against the desk as you sit in the back of history, he nudges you when the bell rings and you walk slightly behind him as he makes his way to English, you’re surprised to see he shares it with you and the teacher seems even more surprised to see you sitting in your seat next to him. “Come over today.” He hums flicking through the copy of Brave New World. “I thought we were reading Fahrenheit 451.” “ That’s next semesters-“ The teacher rolls his eyes as you nudge the bookmark back in place, three chapters from finishing. “Brave New World it is. Yay orgies and drugs.” Kurtz snorts smiling at you. “Kurtz is there something you’d like to share about Mr. Huxley’s work?” “Yeah sounds like his idea of a utopia was just the Ghoul’s Friday night.” The teachers not impressed scowling and giving him detention.

“Sorry Y/N guess we have to postpone the history project again.” He laughs under his breath and you roll your eyes. “Well I’ll definitely have to come over Friday, can’t miss out on a real life Brave New World experience, you think I’ll get extra credit if I take pictures?” You wink and snicker, catching the teacher’s eyes in a glare. You try your best not to beam when he give you detention. “Well then Y/N don’t tell me I’m a bad influence on you.” “Not at all, if anything I’m a bad influence on you; making you miss Ghoul meeting and-“ “SHIT!” Kurtz slams his fist onto the table and the teacher looks unimpressed. “Kurtz what have-“

“Fuck off.” He hisses standing and walking out of the room, you watch as the teacher doesn’t look up as you move to follow him. “Kurtz?” “They told me if I missed one I was out.” “Well that doesn’t seem anything like a decent gang.” “What?” “I mean if they’re going to kick you out cause you don’t show for one meeting seems a little extreme, plus they’d have less members if that was an actual rule.” “I know but I can’t-“

“Cant what? They need you more that you need them.” “No I’m; I’m nothing without them.” “So you just came into being with a little leather jacket? An undying sense of loyalty to a gang you met when you started high school? It’s been years with you in them; you really think they’re going to throw you out cause you miss one meeting?” He nods feverishly and shoves his bag into your hands. “Can you meet me in the library? After this meeting.” “Of course.” You turn starting for the library, no point in going to class when there’s only one left.

You’re sitting in your usual spot watching the door. You don’t mean to snoop but when you shift moving Kurtz’s bag next to yours you can see the bright cover of the sketchbook. You assume the meeting has just started so you pull it out carefully opening it. You skim through the pages, mostly half finished sketches, and colour combinations; you laugh at the sketch, clearly done form his point of view, your arm reaching out to close the window, the top of your head just visible. You turn the page watching and the sketches end up more finished but almost an unrecognisable style; the bright colours are what throw you off the most, before it have been almost completely pencils and now it was neon in comparrision, paints and chalk colour faces and clothes outlandishly bright. You note in place of a signature all that’s written is a squashed ‘jangle 2 ½ tubes; twenty minutes.’ You try your best not to think about this being the day of the fight; how the serpents have neon blues and greens dripping from their faces and the knife one of the Ghouls has drips the same.

Kurtz doesn’t say anything and you debating telling him you looked through his sketchbook but decide against it for the moment. He’s brought you back to his house, pulling his books out gives you the excuse you need. “What’s that?” “Sketchbook, mostly empty, ghouls don’t like me doing art, says it distracts from the gang.” You nod but he laughs catching you frowning. “Don’t agree with them?” “If they think you drawing is distracting what on earth do they have to say about me?”

“Well they don’t like me socializing outside of the gang and the thought of me dating outside of it isn’t something they consider.” You swallow leaning closer to him. “If you’re already distracted by art;” You nudge the sketchbook from where it sits between you on the bed scooting into the space made by it. “Why shouldn’t you be distracted by something more enjoyable?”

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[rangerslayer-97]

Aliens Semi-Review

Well then, I was going to do an Alien Marathon, but I started quite late and the film was a little longer than I originally thought - 2hrs 43mins (163mins). Also, a film directed by James Cameron, not Ridley Scott, surprise surprise for me. However, I know James Cameron's mindset and ambition with films, so I felt the film was in good hands. Since it was my first time watching it, for a film shot in 1986, seven years after the first film (Alien - directed by Ridley Scott); I was not disappointed.

The second film did stay true to most of the original homage to the first film. The tension and the atmosphere screamed original Alien to me. Honestly, it's those scenes, not even the action ones, that had my whole body in a lock and had me holding my breath. The claustrophobic feeling was there, there's always something uncomfortable about narrow hallways or even the thought of descending a flight of narrow staircases to lower levels. In this film, there is this sense of dread of descending to the lower levels.

What I also liked, that did share a similarity was we didn't see the Xenomorphs themselves until a good 90-100 mins into the film. The first scene we see the alien, are the infamous Facehuggers latched onto the face of poor Newt's father. That child no doubt has PTSD, Ripley an obvious one, along with Hickson.

I have to say Cameron handled the action scenes well. I wouldn't say it was a shock that it went from a Sci-fi/Horror to a Sci-fi/Horror/Action. There was a nice balance of action, because you can't always rely on your guns, no matter how armed to the teeth you are. Oh, who's idea was it in the corporation to build a giant colony base that can blow up with the equivalent power of a Nuclear Bomb!? Oh yeah! Multi-billion dollar corporations. On one funny part for this sequel, I was happy the shithead cat was left behind this time, at least he was safe.

I did kind of like the team of Marines. Their banter is humorous in some way, even though they have unknowingly signed their death warrants; i.e.: three-quarters of the team slaughtered faster than I can type a paragraph of my scientific literature review. There's no denying though, facing one Xenomorph unarmed is terrifying, never mind a full nest, even if armed. I don't how Cameron and the team managed that, cause the Xenomorph in the previous film was a guy in a huge suit, and probably sweating in it. Speaking of the Xenomorphs, stealthy little feckers for their size of 8ft, even though the Facehuggers are faster. Let me just admire and marvel at the sight of the Xenomorph Queen which see at the last 20mins of the film.

Giving thumbs to the creative team, the artists and the engineers, they created the largest and most complex animatronic of its time, for 1986. That's what some of the newer films seem to lack nowadays: the art of practical effects. The Xenomorph Queen is an anamatronic sight to behold, while still being manually controlled for the more finer movements such as the legs, tail, lips and secondary mandible by puppeteers. She was an ambitious piece of art and pushing technology to its limit in a way. However, the whole Xenomorph Queen required 14-16 operaters for smooth, complete control.

When the Queen was in action chasing after Ripley and Newt, the movements were so smooth that it is hard to believe it's an anamatronic. It was a time of no CGI and no green screens. The one scene though I did find kind of funny, yet appreciating the intelligence of the Xenomorph species is when the Queen figured out to take the elevator. All I could think was, quoting Jurassic Park: "You clever girl". Yet even the Xenomorphs themselves were smart, attack the survivors from above and below. While it's nice to know Xenomorphs can be killed, there is dangers in numbers and they can outsmart you.

The cast themselves were likable, though it took me a bit of time to like some of the Marines. While the Lieutenant was useless throughout most of the movie and to add salt to the wound, was unconscious for most of it, Gorman did make it up by sacrificing himself, along with Vasquez. What's there to say about Sigourney Weaver? And yes, imagine my surprise that she worked with James Cameron again for his most expensive and CGI-advanced film Avatar in 2009. She did a brilliant reprisal in the second sequel. Thumbs up to Reiser for doing a fine job portraying the asshole Burke. Never trust corporate officials, who care about their multimillion dollar spacecrafts, stations and colony bases. Oh, insane enough wanting a Xenomorph smuggled past Quarantine to study and turn into a bioweapon? I guess that's where 'never trust corporates' trend originated from. Anyways, he got his comeuppance for his arrogance. I liked the acting from Carrie Henn who portrayed Rebecca Jorden/Newt. She worked well with Weaver, being a young child back in '86. Of course, we see another side to Ripley, being given a rare second chance to be a mother again after learning her daughter: Amanda Ripley passed away (she's a different story, since we only see her in the game Alien Isolation (2014), looking for Ripley and set 15 years after Alien; i.e.: her mother is still floating around in hypersleep. Though it was good to know her daughter wasn't sitting on her ass on Earth after Ripley failed to return in time for her 11th birthday). Lance Henrikson also done a fine job playing the Android Bishop, and being one that didn't turn hostile, because I was expecting him to.

Can we also talk about the most memorable and badass scene of the whole film? Ellen Ripley suited up in the Mech Loader versus the Xenomorph Queen. That is a pretty good scene, loved the choreography of it, the brawl was good and then we still have our classic 'shove the fucking alien out the fucking airlock'. I loved that scene and Weaver's moment of badassery.

I also want to praise James Horner (1978-2015) for composing the score. Wonderful piece of work and staying true to the Alien theme from the first film. Also, the opening score reminded me of another track I listen to that sounded familiar. RIP James Horner.

All in all, Aliens was a sequel done right and had a good few elements of the original film. I have to say, for a film of its time, there are very few space films that have me holding my breath. 1986 Aliens did that, as well 1979 Alien (and yes, the airvent scene made me jump, even though I was ready for it. I wasn't). Knowing Cameron's track record and filmography, he did a damn good job on its sequel. We just don't seem to get movies like this nowadays, which is a shame or they are becoming rare and rarer as each year passes. Sure there might be miniscule issues hidden in the film, but to me, this film is worth a 9/10 in my opinion. One of the few Sci-fi films that made me feel I didn't waste my time, never mind 120mins of it.

Whelp, onto Alien 3.

[stattic-writes]

Ghost

https://statticscribbles.tumblr.com/post/639099629845233664/masterlist

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[douxreviews]

Aliens (1986) Review

[This review contains spoilers.]

Aliens is a perfect sequel, if there is such a thing. It's bigger, glossier, a bit longer, and it did an exceptional job building on the original story.

There are a number of parallels to the original. The story begins with Ripley waking up, and ends with the survivors going into cold sleep. The characters are again only known by their last names; even Newt has a very non-little-girl nickname. There's a huge explosion at the end, but the alien still manages to make it aboard the "lifeboat" to wreak more havoc. There's an android on board who ends up in pieces. Best of all, like Ridley Scott did in the original, James Cameron spends an entire hour setting up the story, and successfully pays it all off during the rest of the movie.

There are a number of differences, of course. Instead of "truckers," we have a crew of badass marines. There are many aliens instead of just one. The cast is twice as big and the stakes are higher, too, since there were sixty-some families on the "shake-and-bake" colony.

But we still have Ripley, and she is several levels of awesome. This is the movie where Sigourney Weaver proved to the world that a woman could be an action hero. She was terrific in scene after scene, from her tirade in the conference room at the beginning, to the pulse-pounding Ripley-in-the-loader versus the alien queen battle at the end. I've always loved the way she took over and drove the tank to the rescue, and the sequence in the lift where she loaded up with many, many, many weapons on her way into the queen's lair to rescue Newt. Sigourney Weaver was nominated for best actress for this movie, and she absolutely deserved it.

I also loved Michael Biehn as Hicks. He and Ripley were on the same wavelength throughout the movie. I particularly enjoyed the "nuke the planet" exchange, and the one where he showed her how to use that massive assault rifle. Ripley and Hicks were made for each other. I really wanted Ripley, Hicks and Newt to end up together as a family, maybe with Bishop as the weird uncle who sleeps on the couch. Maybe in Alien fanfic. Is there Alien fanfic?

Paul Reiser gave a wonderfully slimy performance as the Company rep. Very smart, casting a comedian, since this is a character that we expect to be evil, but the fact that it's Reiser makes us think we might be wrong. Bill Paxton is wonderfully annoying as the cowardly Hudson, and I loved that he went out in a blaze of glory. Newt is likable and has courage; she's not a cutesy kid at all, and Carrie Henn certainly had a greater acting range than Jonesy the cat. And I always liked that Bishop turned out to be the opposite of Ash, since we expected him to be just as bad. Especially since he was played by the master of evil, Lance Henriksen.

My favorite supporting actor in this one, though, is Jenette Goldstein, who is a standout as Vasquez. Hard to remember so long ago, but when this movie came out, women didn't serve in combat. Vasquez made a very strong impression on me. And I loved that Gorman redeemed himself by going back for Vasquez. Their scene in the air duct always gets to me.

Unlike most of my favorite movies, I saw Aliens in the theater. It was an unforgettable movie experience, literally edge of your seat. I remember actually feeling mildly nauseous. (That's when you know they got you – when your audience wants to throw up.) Aliens doesn't hold up quite as well as Alien does, in my opinion, but it's still an outstanding movie. I always watch them together. Like I said, pretty much the perfect sequel.

Bits and pieces of androids:

— The action takes place 57 years after the original. The planet got a name, or more accurately, a designation: LV426.

— Alien and Aliens always makes me think of two of my other favorite movies, Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It's not surprising, since the two franchises share James Cameron and some of his favorite actors: Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton.

— Bishop explained that Ash was a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A2 model, and a bit twitchy. (You'd call what Ash did in the original movie "twitchy?") And that the more recently manufactured androids are subject to Asimov's rules. Hyperdyne always makes me think of Cyberdyne.

— There are several shots of Ripley's feet and she's wearing Reeboks. Really fun product placement that didn't detract from the story at all. I usually hate product placement.

— James Horner's music is memorable, and effectively heightens the tension. Like it needed more heightening.

— Dan says that Alien is a cold movie, and Aliens is a hot one. I thought that was an interesting observation.

— While looking up quotes, I discovered that James Remar (Dexter's father) was originally cast to play Dwayne Hicks, and was later replaced by Michael Biehn. I hadn't known that. I can't imagine this movie without Michael Biehn. I absolutely loved him in the first Terminator movie.

— As with Alien, there is an extended version. I prefer the theatrical release. But the extended version gives more weight to Ripley's need to save Newt; Ripley had a daughter.

— For me, the story ends with this movie. I'm not fond of the other sequels. One of our writers has offered to review them, though, and if he does, I'll very much look forward to reading them.

Quotes:

Ripley: "Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?"

Gorman: "Look, we can't have any firing in there. I want you to collect magazines from everybody." Hudson: "Is he fucking crazy?" Frost: "What do you expect us to use, man? Harsh language?"

Ripley: "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Burke: "Hold on a second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it." Ripley: "They can bill me."

Ripley: "Look. No bad dreams there." Newt: "Ripley, she doesn't have bad dreams because she's just a piece of plastic." Definitely Carrie Henn's best line. And she delivered it beautifully.

Newt: "My mommy always said there were no monsters, no real ones. But there are." Ripley: "Yes, there are, aren't there?" Newt: "Why do they tell little kids that?" Ripley: "Most of the time it's true."

Ripley: "You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage."

Ripley: "Get away from her, you bitch!" I remember the audience cheering that one.

A worthy sequel to an excellent movie. Four out of four M41A pulse rifles, ten millimeter with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launchers,

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

(...) Something something even in journalism being specifically a sports/football journalist and dealing with players, owners, and coaches like Ted’s predecessor. (...) // god I have so many thoughts about this entire post and especially this part! george cartrick uses a homophobic term in one of his first lines. that first scene with george and rebecca is probably what the press room environment was like while trent was deeply closeted, unhappy in his relationship with a woman. to think of him being in that chair week after week for years... no wonder he was so cold when we first met him. and no wonder ted's warm presence changed him so profoundly

RIGHT!!!!!!!!! i think about this so so so much . like. trent pre-canon just. being so deeply unhappy. bored with his job, scared of himself, lonely and bitter and with so little affection in his life. his work environment is outright hostile and his home life feels like a lie and he has nowhere he feels safe. and yeah just. specifically with him going to work every day to talk to people like cartrick, to be immersed in a very toxic and homophobic culture, one he grew up with with his father, and like. him being sharp and unforgiving and snappish and aloof because he has to be, because the world he deals with daily is cold and sharp to him, and then--

then ted comes along and he is completely unprepared. thrown off guard, searching for what angle ted has, what trick this is, what he's playing at, because he is completely unprepared to deal with someone who is warm and genuine and open. and when it becomes increasingly clear that ted's sincere, that he really is warm and caring and kind, that he not only isn't going to but never would say the kind of shit cartrick did, that trent--trent can let his guard down around him--it's... kind of irresistible. how can he be anything but helpless to that when he's been starved of it for so long? i remember in that same quote that james lance said that he wanted to be loved but truly felt he was unlovable he said something like. even from the beginning there was more inside wanting desperately to come out, that he couldn't express himself because of his oppressive childhood (and, we can assume, his prior work environment) so he couldn't show the sweetheart he really was and i'm just crying. like. yeah. him just utterly melting. like.

this is barely coherent but just. something about how ted's whole thing is getting through to people and crumbling tough cookies, and trent is presented--an early challenge--as a very tough cookie indeed, the coldest of the bunch, the worst and most cutting journalist of all the shitty journalists, literally handpicked by rebecca to destroy ted as the most respected but also the biggest cunt. and like. it takes a while for ted to get through to roy, and jamie, and rebecca, right? but trent??? like. there's the two brief press conference meetings (in which trent is borderline hostile, although he seems bemusedly impressed by ted's clever answers once he's prepared) and then like, what, half a day? a brief conversation or two, watching him interact with kids, and then half a dinner that he basically flees halfway through directly after realizing ted's genuine and looking like he's been fucking cracked open about it. like. it doesn't even take that much for him to change his mind and listen to what ted's saying. yeah, it takes him a little while longer to fully soften up--and in fact, we only see him really, truly his most authentic sweetheart self once he's fully immersed in the community ted's helped cultivate--but like. wow. literally just. ted being sincere, ted being kind to him, and that's enough. like. a wild beast that wants to be tamed so it can lay its head in a warm lap, a knight that wants to be disarmed so he can finally stop fighting. it took so little to get through to him. like it's kind of tragic. maybe no one else could have done it--could have been as boldly, incredibly, almost stupidly sincere and open as ted is--or maybe anyone could have and it's simply that no one did. like just!!!!!! trent growing to be cold and aloof and sharp as armor, defense against the world that's hurt him, that he's already hiding from, and just. ted disarming him. trent letting his guard down and for once not being punished for it. i just. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGH!!!!!!! no wonder he was so cold with how unhappy and scared and alone he was!!!!!!! no wonder ted's kindness and warmth affected him so badly!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[distant-rose]

Fandoms Q10, Ships Q15, Author Q26, Fanfic Q46!

Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

There’s a lot of fandoms I read fic for but I don’t write in. So far, in my fourteen years of fandom, I’ve only written for Once Upon a Time, X-Men, Justice League, Batman Beyond and Teen Titans but I’ve read a ton of fanfiction particularly for Star Wars, Punisher, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones/ASOIAF, Queen of the South, Labyrinth and Stranger Things.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?  (BONUS BECAUSE I MESSED UP)

Oh my god, where the fuck do I start, I have so many. Killian Jones and David Nolan, Dick Grayson and Donna Troy, Dick Grayson and Wally West, Barbara Gordan and Dinah Lance, Rogue and Logan, Remy LeBeau and Ororo, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, Sirius Black and James Potter, Kate Bishop and Clint Barton, Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler…there’s a lot.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love? 

Yeah. I love a lot of obscure ships actually but mainly for GoT/ASOIAF. For ASOIAF, I’m mainly a Jaime/Brienne girl but I also love Sansa/Margaery, Sansa/Willias, Lyanna/Arthur and occasionally find myself in the Ned/Cersei trash bucket. I also love romantic Captain Charming. I do have A LOT of crack ships like Captain Shakespeare (Stardust)/Captain Nemo (OUAT) and Henry Mills (OUAT)/Sarah Williams (Labyrinth). I can’t think of anything else but I’m sure there’s more.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

Honestly? Mainly puns or references to phrases (”The Rabbit Died” a reference to archaic pregnancy testing) or popular culture (”An Ode to Ferris Bueller” a reference to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where the main character faked sick) that have something to do with that’s happening in the story. Like the “Wolf in the Door” is based off the phrase “keeping at bay the wolf in the door” which dates back to the 1500s and it meant to fight off urges, particularly ones that weren’t necessarily good ones. And since, that story is kinda about a murder spree, those urges aren’t necessarily being suppress the said wolf in the door. Hence the title. 

If I can’t think of something, I generally will pick a quote that I think adeptly sums up the story that features in the fic. It’s kinda lame.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Uhhhh….do I have to choose? Honestly, probably “Seal of Fate” or “Quick and Sudden” for my semi-normal fanfiction pieces. If someone were kinda sorta interested in my super niche dumpster fire series that is “Little Pirates” and wanted to read it for the first time, since you don’t have to read them in order, I would probably suggest “Human Coloring Book,” “Dads Against Daughters Dating” or “Wolf in the Door.”

Ask me questions about fan fiction

[chrismaverickdotcom]

In Order to Save the Village, We Had To Burn It Down... AGAIN!

So America is on fire… or at least parts of it are. Specifically, the city of Minneapolis is having a really bad time right now — in the wake of the murder of George Floyd a few days ago. But it’s not just there. There’s been protests in several American cities tonight, and some of them have turned violent. The CNN building in Atlanta was under siege earlier tonight. People have been gathered outside of the White House in DC in what’s been a pretty precarious situation. People are fed the fuck up. And they deserve to be. We got to watch a black man murdered live on TV and the Internet. AGAIN!

I thought about writing about this a couple days ago when I first realized this was going to get bad. I didn’t have it in me at the time. Frankly I was kind of busy with my dissertation. But also, I felt like it made more of a statement to just say “you know, I wrote about this six years ago with Ferguson and it’s still happening, so just go read that one.” So that’s what I did. I reposted the link to Facebook and Twitter, and then went back to my work, with the TV on in the background and checking in on social media every once in a while just to see what people were saying about it. And as I did it, I knew full well “this is just going to get worse and worse” especially with the idiot who occupies the White House.

(By the way… the idiot did not disappoint… If you’ve been paying attention you probably know about his dumbass threatening of shooting looters and trying to claim that doing so was to keep Floyd from not dying in vain. I don’t even have time to go into Trump’s fucking moronic ramblings right now… other than to say… as I tweeted at him “fuck you dude!” and also to say, about his explanation that he didn’t know of any racist history with the “when the looting starts the shooting starts” statement that the answer to that is “then you are too fucking dumb to be president… and frankly… too fucking dumb to even be a good racist”)

Anyway, if you’ve been watching TV or the internet in the last 24 hours or so, you know that it did get worse. It is getting worse. But one of the nice things is that this time around, I’ve seen more… let’s say “positive” reaction to the riots. A lot of people seem to “get it” this time. Part of that I think is just the cultural moment that we find ourselves in in 2020. Partly as a reaction to dumbass-in-chief, partly because of the efforts of the #BLM movement… and I think in large part because of the visceral reaction of sitting there and watching a cop very calmly crush the life out of a man without batting an eye while onlookers pleaded with him to stop. People just “get it” this time (which is why I think the viralness of the video is a good idea despite what some other people think. That’s another side point I don’t have much time for right now). And good. People get it.

But… not everyone… of course not everyone.

And the problem I have is that the people who are complaining… both on the left and the right are doing so in the exact same way. In a way that I find really troubling and so that’s what I need to rant on a bit here. I’ve had a few arguments… some longer than others… on social media in the last couple days (hell, years… since I wrote that original essay) about how effective riots are. Some conservative MAGA types like to claim “but Martin Luther King was against riots. He’d be disappointed in you. These are just a bunch of scumbags who want TVs.” Fuck those guys! On the other hand I’ve had some arguments with more liberal people who like to claim “but this is bad, because black people are just burning down black owned businesses. it doesn’t help anything. You’re destroying your own community” as though classism were not a thing conflated with racism in complicated ways and black people were a big monolithic profit sharing union which directly benefited from the enrichment of the few that are able to manage to own property and commerce in a tiny microcosm capitalist system that catered to other black people and even if they were that wasn’t still as problematic as fuck! I swear to God, the next white person who tries to explain to me that “you don’t understand, these people are destroying ethnic businesses. They’re destroying their own community. They’re only hurting themselves…” I’m punching you in the fucking throat. And you know what I may do it you’re a black person too…

Because, in either of those cases, it’s not that the decision to riot is a bunch of people got together and had a calm rational meeting and said “ok, well that’s it. I guess we torch the city!” No… it’s based on feelings that have boiled over from a continuous, systemic, dangerous and sometimes PURPOSEFUL ignoring of the struggles that they are going through. It is a decision of last resort.

For me, the straw here was Keisha Lance Bottoms, Democratic mayor of Atlanta, making a comment earlier tonight about the riots in her town. She’s upset. She’s rightly upset. But she said something that I hate. Something to the effect of (not an exact quote): “You are disgracing the memory of George Floyd. You are disgracing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. When King was killed, we didn’t riot. Go home!”

NO… She is wrong. This is the same bullshit that the dumabass-in-chief was trying to get across. Yes, she’s way more eloquent. She is way more studied. Frankly, she’s at least 10x as smart as President Dumbass. But… she is also wrong. I don’t know that Atlanta rioted when King was killed. in fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. The city was mourning. They were having his funeral there. HOWEVER. That’s very misleading. Everyone else rioted! There were nearly 200 retaliatory riots across the United States the week that King was killed. More than 40 people were killed. Thousands of people were injured. There were tens of millions of dollars (in 1968 dollars) in damages as cities got burned. They called in the military. Not just the National Guard… the Army and Marines were deployed to some cities. It was called the Holy Week Uprising. Look it up! IT WAS BAD! REAL BAD!!!

Of course a lot of people don’t know that. It was 52 years ago. And we don’t talk about it much anymore because it doesn’t fit the narrative that we like to tell about MLK…. that he was this cuddly peace loving teddy bear that brought America together and ended racism and everyone loved him and mourned him when he was gone.

If everyone loved King, he wouldn’t have been shot in the head. And that’s not just James Earl Ray. King was on the FBI watchlist. He was widely considered a terrorist by people. Any of your super MAGA friends (the same ones who hated the Colin Kaepernick kneeling protest) that are posting memes that say “this is a protest, and this is a crime” with MLK’s picture on the “good” side…. make no mistake, those are the assholes who would have been calling him “nigger” and screaming he should be lynched. For most Americans in 2020… especially white ones… you maybe learned two things about MLK in history class… he “had a dream” and he was killed. That’s it. If you’re lucky, you maybe learned a third thing. That on March 9, 1965, he marched across a bridge in Selma, non-violently! And that was the turning point for the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the event in the meme that everyone shares about how great he was at non-violent protest. What maybe you don’t know is that that march he was at… That was two days after the first time they tried to march across the same bridge and the cops beat the shit out of everyone. It’s called Bloody Sunday. Look it up! King was there putting himself in harms way in what could have turned into a much more violent protest. What made King great was that in face of being one of the most hated men in America, he kept his composure. He kept his non-violence stance. At considerable risk to himself he preached his message. And for all his troubles… he got shot in the fucking head. People seem to forget that part.

See, it’s not convenient. It makes it hard for America to feel good about itself if they dwell on the fact that the man we’re supposed to view as the 20th century’s greatest hero… GOT MURDERED FOR HIS TROUBLES. It feels icky. Just like it feels icky to remember that after he was martyred to the cause of non-violence… there was a solid week of rioting in his name. And it also feels icky to think about the fact that those riots are an important part of the Civil Rights Movement. Not just the Holy Week Uprising. I mean the riots of the ENTIRE Civil Rights movement.

You see… for all the rhetoric about King… he didn’t “solve racism all by himself.” And I mean, not just because he didn’t end racism. But also because he wasn’t alone. And I’m not just talking about Malcolm X either. I mean that his non-violence movement was not alone. Yes, he was a key figure during the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, his big thing was non-violent protests. But that was just HIS thing. During the hey day of the Civil Rights movement from 1954 until 1968, while King was staging these protests… there was a lot of rioting going on. Do you know what happened in Los Angeles only 5 months after the Selma march that everyone loves? A traffic stop escalated into a six-day riot that left 34 people dead and 1000 people injured and devastated 46 square miles of LA. It’s called the Watts Riot. Look it up!

This happened a lot during the Civil Rights movement. In fact almost constantly. There were literally 159 race riots over the course of like two months in 1967. 85 people died. Thousands of people were injured. Over ten thousand people were arrested. It’s called the Long Hot Summer. Look it up! Which was sort of MLK’s actual point. You know how you have that one black friend who keeps sharing the King quote that “Riots are the language of the unheard” and you mostly ignore him… I mean, if you’re an asshole MAGA type, maybe you tell him he’s wrong… but otherwise you maybe just say “oh yeah… good point” but you don’t really think about what that means? Well, what it means is actually super important. MLK was trying to use non-violent protest to get people to listen to him so that violent protests didn’t erupt. Do you know how I know this? I know because HE SAID SO. But he also knew that the inevitable result of NOT listening to him and not bringing racial change was that there was going to be rioting. And I quote:

“But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”

-Martin Luther King, The Other America (1967)

Over and over again… You see, because Martin Luther King was not the be-all-end-all of the civil rights movement. What he was, was Colin Kaepernick, 1960s edition. You know “that son-of-bitch that disrespects the troops and doesn’t deserve freedom because he won’t stand up when a bunch of white people tell him to and celebrate how great America is”? Yeah… him! You see… just because you don’t use the word “nigger” that doesn’t mean you don’t mean it. Kaep has done a ton of good for this world. He has caused a lot of change. But it’s not enough. Because he’s one guy… and the change doesn’t come… sometimes, there’s riots!

And sometimes, there’s not. Even if you’re one of the people who AGREES that #BlackLivesMatter, and you post your tweets with hashtags and maybe even donate. Do you remember Ahmaud Arbery? We were all super upset about his murder a few weeks back. We had video. It was right in our faces. People got mad! Good! You know… for like two days! And then everyone forgot and went back to the very important job of arguing with each other over whether or not masks worked to fight COVID-19 and if it was time to open back up the world up in a week or a month and can we meet in groups of 10 or 25 or 200? Black Lives Matter… but not as much as … you know… getting a haircut. We forgot, because he didn’t get a riot.

And THAT was the message of Martin Luther King. Riots are the language of the unheard. And they are unheard because no one is listening. And you’re not listening now. Not really. When you are more concerned with the methods or location of protest, then you aren’t listening. When you are more concerned with the destruction of property or whose property it is, then you aren’t listening. When you’re more concerned with whether it is appropriately a riot or a protest, then you aren’t listening. You aren’t listening to the people telling you black lives matter. You are not listening to the large segments of black society who do not have justice or equality or humanity. You are not listening to Kaepernick and why he was kneeling in the first place. And if this were 1965, you wouldn’t have listened to Martin Luther King. Not really. You would have paid a little attention… for a little while… until you didn’t. Until you needed a fucking haircut. “And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”

In Order to Save the Village, We Had To Burn It Down… AGAIN! was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

[mindpenis]

'Malcolm Deeley via yahoo.com 'anagrams to'A homely, moody, comical leave.' From: Iason Ragnar Bellerophon <cavemanrobot@gmail.com>

First Chapter of Abyss

Inbox

x

Sep 4

to me: Iason Ragnar Bellerophon, World’s Greatest Living Thothist.

Here you go...Chapter One of "Abyss", with a few quotes preceding it to set the mood. Chapter Two will go back to the beginning of 1887, diving deep into Ruha, Grace, and Captain Wilder AKA Doc Talos.

Just sent along the Slavepal payment as well.

ABYSS

I am fond of them, of the inferior beings of the abyss, of those who are full of longing.

Richard Wagner

He struggled with himself, too. I saw it -- I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.

Joseph Conrad

And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death, where towering pyramids of skulls her glory witnesseth. Her kiss was like an adder's fang, with the sweetness Lilith had, and her red-eyed vassals howled for blood in that City of the Mad.

Robert E. Howard

And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man. Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.

Richard Francis Burton

1887, The Congo, Central Africa

She stood there in the firelight of the burning camp, smiling as if all the death surrounding us prompted her to the most consummate pleasure.

The swamp would claim the corpses in a matter of days, devoured by insects, dragged away by scavengers, bones scattered and sunk in the grasping mud.

“So James, at last you are Talos.”

How she could speak with such calm irony was beyond my comprehension. Had she not just witnessed me put a bullet into the head of her own daughter? Was there not blood oozing from the wound in her own chest, which I would have judged fatal to anyone else?

Talos. The man of bronze, tireless guardian against those who would destroy and despoil, until brought down by a witch, the nail holding in the flow from his one great vein of holy blood pulled out so that all animation left his metal body.

I glanced down at the dead woman lying in the mud. Grace's pistol lay in the muck near hear outflung hand. The dark glasses she had worn in both night and day had been jarred off when the bullet had entered her forehead. Her eyes had ceased the roving of their affliction, settling in a death stare that had a more normal aspect than the one she had worn in life.

Ruha inclined her own gaze downward. She crouched then, roughly grasping Grace's hair in one fist, lifting her head and giving the corpse a passionate kiss. With her teeth, she tugged Grace's tongue out slightly from between the slack lips. She used her own tongue to toy with it briefly, then raised her head and regarded me with another smile.

“You're in the abyss, James. In my order, we fuck the abyss.”

I could not shrug off my own bullet wound with the ease of which Ruha seemed capable. Grace's final shot had grazed my temple, gouging a furrow that burned like fire. Jagged lances of pain made it hard to think. My finger twitched on the trigger-guard of my own gun. Would Ruha, impossibly, survive if I put a bullet in her head too?

I remembered her prediction, made in the elegant surroundings of her London drawing room, that I would someday slaughter a string of women in an orgy of bloodlust. I had dismissed her “vision” as a manifestation of what I had come to believe was her cruel insanity. How things had changed.

In my half-delirious state the desire pounded in my brain to kill her and flee from her abyss of twisted passion with the desperation of a criminal. She was monstrous. To execute her would do the world a service. No one would question any story I chose to give if I should succeed in struggling back to the coast alone. I could go back to London, return to my practice, try to forget, attempt to atone.

The scene before me seemed to blur, sliding back into focus only as I concentrated on the smooth metal surface of my pistol's trigger.

Ruha released Grace's hair – the woman's death stare returning mercifully to the mud.

“Captain Wilder...” for a moment I thought the dead woman was speaking, and only with effort did I recall the words to be Grace's as she had left England to follow Ruha to Africa. “When what one seeks is eternal life, all acts are justified.”

I blinked, shook my head, and realized Ruha was now standing right in front of me. She stared at me with her disconcerting grey eyes. Knowing her distinctly unholy skill with mesmerism, I tried to wrench my gaze away.

How long had I been standing there, semi-frozen? Obviously an interval of at least some minutes had passed. Ruha had shed her clothing. Flashing my eyes around, I discerned her ensanguined blouse near our feet, her skirt and boots flung down carelessly beside it. She took one of my hands in an incongruously gentle grasp and guided it to her breast. Damp with sweat, the curve of her flesh was also stained with wet blood. As she led my fingers to caress her, I encountered the ragged circle of torn flesh where Grace's bullet had struck her.

In another abrupt realization, I became conscious that the hand being manipulated by Ruha was my gun-hand. Had she simply stepped forward and lifted the weapon from my fingers? In a semi-panic I scanned the ground for it, finally seeing it in the mud a few feet away.

She lifted one of my fingers, now crimsoned with her blood, to her mouth. She sucked it, her tongue flicking behind her teeth against the fingertip. She then withdrew the finger, her other hand reaching for the buckle of my belt.

“The reptile regrows its tail,” she said, showing me her tongue again as she licked her lips.

“I shoud snap your neck.”

The threat prompted her to grin.

“The owl's neck turns all the way around,” she answered.

Having deftly undone my belt, she opened my trousers, yanking them down to expose my suddenly-tumescent shaft. She sank to her knees in the mud, opening her mouth as if to receive me. But instead she spoke again.

“What an idiot prick your father is. What we do now will quite literally be the death of him.”

Why would she say that now? The huge old man with one eye, called by the false name Saklas, who in one breath had acknowledged me his son, and in the next dismissed me as irrelevant.

What we do now...

The sweat and blood-smells on her incited my erection to even greater intensity, and I feared for my sanity. Perhaps the parasites and predators of this godforsaken place were even now keying on those aromas, instinctively sensing that in their conjunction with the musk of sex lay the marks of potential prey, vulnerable when reeking of lust. As Ruha's tongue began to emerge from between her lips, I witnessed an illusion of its length extending grotesquely, wrapping in tight coils around my phallus.

My own sweat had dripped into my eyes, stinging. I shook my head, blinked, and looked down at the dark crown of Ruha's head, now gliding forward and back in the movements of fellatio.

I must reach down, pull her from me, twist her head, break her neck.

But I could not. I had dealt death in battle, I had returned death when attacked, as when Grace had attempted to shoot me. But I could not snuff out a life as an act of merciless judgment.

Ruha took me deep in her throat, then in withdrawing, angled her face upward to me. Like a fool, I looked into her eyes.

My mind blanked. I did not know where I was. Arousal manifested as a mindless force in me, imbued with a strengthening of the impulse to do murder that I had just rejected – though now instead of stemming from anger, fear or even desperation, its engine was lust.

I was conscious of wearing dark clothing, of my hands being fitted with gloves. The air, rank with dampness, was not that of a Congolese swamp, but a fog-laced miasma that was surely London.

Before me, hands pressed against the bricks of an alley wall, her skirts lifted, was a woman I knew must be a prostitute. I had squired numerous women from the upper tiers of the erotic trade in my time in London, but from her disheveled appearance and crude clothing, I perceived this to be a woman of the lower echelon. I had always felt sympathy for such women, often pressed by poverty to sell their bodies for pennies...I had never solicited their services, instead offering my own services as a doctor to try and ease suffering caused by privation and venereal disease.

The rush of raw lust filling me now held no vestige of compassion. This was a vessel for me to fill, from which I would extract an ecstasy both primal and esoteric. To release her lifeblood during the act of copulation would exalt her, while bathing me in energies brimming with the potency of life.

I had a scalpel in my hand. I took hold of her hair, yanking her head back. As I entered her from behind, I reached around and placed the blade against her throat.

My mind seemed to explode, and the gush of her hot blood penetrated even my gloved hand, burning with a mystical heat.

“Now, envision your ejaculate filling her with life, James,” this was Ruha's voice. “What you feel now is the true source of all human power. Cast out the illusion of spirit, experience and reject the lie that is the gnosis, recognize the ascendency of all that is carnal.”

My senses returned, though the reality was no less insane.

I was engaged in intercourse with Grace's body. Her clothing had been torn away – by Ruha, or had I done it? Her milk-white skin, the inescapable mark of her albinism, was tinted in lurid shades by the light of flames in the still-burning camp. Her hair, dyed to the purest black while in London, had grown out to show its snowy roots during the days she had crossed the Congo in pursuit of Ruha.

Her corpse had been propped on her knees, arms trailing back, face down still in the mud. The triangle, the pyramid, the submission of a female submitting to mating. On my own knees behind her, I stroked in and out, my body feverish with the same overwhelming lust I had been filled with in the vision of the prostitute.

Grace, however, seemed now a goddess to my perception – a dead goddess, but one still surrounded by auras of the escaping essence of life.

“You are not to come,” Ruha's voice continued. “She is the catalyzer only, finally fulfilling a role suitable for her inferiority.”

At the moment of deepest penetration I ceased my thrusting, holding all my muscles rigid. Was this by Ruha's command, or was my body responding to some knowledge of the deepest secrets of violent eroticism? Grace's energies were no longer dissipating into the African night, no longer sinking into the hungry mud of this death's-head continent. They were pouring into me.

It began to rain – a warm spray that became a torrent, turning the ground into a flowing, sucking expanse.

Ruha, behind me, pulled my phallus from Grace. I looked down – her hand, wrapping my rigid member, seemed to hold a hard ingot of alhemist's gold.

“Now you are ready, James,” she whispered in my ear. “Time to fuck me. Time to create a new incarnation of the Primal Man.”

She circled in front of me and lay back into the mud, taking a moment to shove Grace's corpse to the side. She pulled me down atop her.

“Give me what you've taken, James...then kill me too.”

“What?”

“You're afraid of death, like a little boy, like a mewling pussy. You're going to fuck me, then shove my head down into the mud and hold me there until I stop twitching. Then indulge in the first real climax of your life, into my corpse.”

“In-insane...”

“Yes, that's exactly right. Do it darling, or I'll tear off your cock and fling it to its fellow serpents in this swamp, then rip out your throat.”

As a display of her ability to do exactly that, one of her hands surged upward and clutched my neck. My breath immediately stopped. I grabbed at my throat, trying to dislodge her. Her strength was incredible. I could not loosen her grip.

“That would be disappointing,” her voice was as richly seductive as it had ever been, where I half-expected the gutterals of a demoness from hell. “but I've served other prospective lovers that way, when their potential failed to materialize.”

What possessed me then – animal panic, anger, or a final wave of mind-destroying lust – was a tranformation. Her taunts and threats echoed in my brain. I pushed my phallus into her, and did everything within my power to hammer her into the mud. I let the whole weight of my body drop onto her. My hip muscles pistoned, and I felt I was fucking the female embodiment of the earth itself.

She released her hand from around my throat, and I spastically flailed my hands downward, gripping her neck in a turnabout that felt equally horrifying and empowering. I pushed her down below the surface of the mud, until all I could see above her shoulders were straggling wisps of her black hair, writhing from both her convulsions and mine.

I don't know how long it took for her to cease thrashing, but eventually she did. As she had predicted, my climax came then, with brutal intensity that blacked my mind with more soot than in any furnace in London. I wept, the tears swept into the deluge of rain, and shouted threats of my own at her lifeless body, pounded now into the swamp and filled with my seed.

My atheistic brain rejected every glimpse in this of her ridiculous, sacred and scorned gnosis. Her ravings, about a future that would now never arrive, had been meaningless. I struggled, my body still deeply rooted in her corpse, to deny to myself that like Talos, the bronze man, every aspect of true life had been drained out of me.

Have safe travels today!

And here is Chapter 2:

December 1886, West End, London

A light snow began to fall as we exited the carriage outside of the Narcissus.

I took Catherine's hand, guiding her as she set her booted foot on the carriage step, and from there to the cobble street.

“Why Jimmy,” she said, tilting her face upward as snowflakes caught on her eyelashes, “we may just have a white Christmas.”

I smiled, offering her my arm, and we moved into the shelter under the theatre canopy. The Narcissus Theatre, no stranger to scandal, was actually dark. Its reputation for staging productions designed to outrage the West End's affluent and aristocratic denizens was something of a legend. Earlier in the year they had been threatened with closure over a particularly lurid production in the Grand Guignol tradition, using copious amounts of pig and lambs-blood gathered with unseemly glee from district butchers. Threats from civic authorities to shutter the theatre had prompted an impudent response, as they'd promptly made use of their remaining sanguine inventory in a production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

But even that reputation would be exceeded tonight, and so no footlights or marquee showed; this production would be a private affair.

The Hellfire Club, whose company I indulged in as a means for socializing with London's most abstruse intellectuals, was staging its annual rite of Isis and Osiris.

I was providing the Isis. Catherine, nominally an “actress”, was in fact the highest paid erotic hostess in the city. Had this been ancient Rome, she would have been courtesan to an Emperor.

I had been seeing Cathy not only as a bed partner, but with more serious intent. Beyond the everyday ebb and flow of my medical practice, I was composing a treatise on the emerging science of genetics. Cathy had two children, a boy and a girl, healthy and both mentally gifted, despite being the scion of disparate client fathers. I was exploring the concept – sneered at by small minded colleagues – that qualities like intelligence might be carried primarily through a dominant female gene. Cathy herself, though lacking in formal education, was intelligent to a degree I considered exceptional. The clients she had identified as the children's fathers, though well moneyed, had the intelligence quotient of blocks of oak.

She stamped her boots lightly as we entered the Narcissus' foyer, freeing them from their snow-dusting. A hired man, amusingly outfitted in an art nouveau version of Egyptian livery, appeared to take our coats. Though the lights of the theatre's facade had been unlit, a warm gas-glow filled the interior.

Serving as greeter, the Club's White King, publisher and underground pornographer Hugh Dulcey accepted Cathy's proffered hand and kissed it decorously, then nodded greeting to me.

“Wilder,” he said, “thank you for bringing our radiant Isis. Far off by the furthest Rosses, we foot it all the night, weaving olden dances, mingling hands and mingling glances, till the moon has taken flight.”

“You're a shameless promoter, Hughie,” Cathy winked. “Is Bill here tonight, then?”

“Of course. He wrote your lines. I'm going to steal him from the Hermetic Society if it's the last thing I do.”

I'd early realized that the mystical aspects of the Hellfire Club's activities were indulged in with a measure of cynical disbelief. But that, if anything, had appeal for me. I had no use for mysticism either. However, it provided an intriguing bridge to concepts better interpreted through science. The minority of earnest mystics in the group often had the most fascinating ideas, and the transmutation of those concepts into hard medicine formed another sidelight of my independent researches.

Cathy tossed me a private smirk as we moved past him into the theatre proper. “Hughie does have airs for a cock-and-pussy purveyor, doesn't he?”

“He thinks that wrapping coitus in a cloak of occultism elevates it to transcendence.'

“I'm not sure I completely disagree with him,” she laughed. “If I'm going to be hayrolled, getting it from Osiris has a certain appeal. I wish you could have been prevailed upon to play the godly, horny, rebuilt-husband, Jimmy.”

I leaned down to give her an affectionate kiss. “I would have enjoyed it. However, Hugh will have his camera in the wings.”

“I know. He's a commercial creature under the esoteric folderol. I can see that might put a crimp in your reputation, Jimmy. Though naturally it will just enhance mine.”

We entered the stage-and-audience area of the theatre, the gaslight a little dimmer here. Other Hellfire Club devotees had arrived, some seated, some chatting in the aisles. The usual array of bored, thrill-seeking aristocrats, blended with those of more Bohemian and societally rebellious nature. Not every individual was known to me. The Club was always recruiting new members, or attracting the curious through gossip passed along the sluice of London's outré underculture.

Cathy, who had raised herself on tiptoe to accept my kiss, gave my arm a squeeze as our lips parted. “Time I headed backstage,” she said. “When next you see me, I'll be a goddess.”

She made her way to the stage steps, ascended, and turned back for a moment to smile at those gathered in the theatre. In a very non-philosophical manner, a few whistles and catcalls rippled through the assembly. With more dignity than flamboyance, she inclined her head toward the seats with a slight smile before disappearing behind the curtain. Really, Cathy was a delight.

I picked out a seat for myself near the orchestra pit. No musicians had been hired for this performance, so this area of seats offered a little semi-privacy. Tonight I found myself uninterested in small talk with other Clubbers.

Relaxing in the seat, I let my mind wander. I thought of Cathy's two children – bright young minds, filled with potential. Though their social status would forever be limited by the notoriety of their mother's career, what they could ultimately achieve when adults might be notable.

In addition to my scientific interest in the mechanisms of genetics, the concept of positive societal change sparked by the influence of select, superior individuals also held great interest for me. My belief was that civilization was in fact driven by the exceptional few leading the prosaic many, and I had a degree of zeal to be a part of that ongoing process. In this burgeoning era of inventiveness and industry, what a few remarkable and gifted individuals might accomplish offered an enticing vision of an improved and ever-improving world.

With mild surprise, I became aware that a woman was moving toward me along the line of seats. With my chosen placement away from other members of the Club, her intent could only be to join me.

A moment later I was on my feet, accepting her extended hand, which was somewhat daringly ungloved.

“May I join you, sir?” Her voice had a unique cast, very rich, with an accent which was certainly not that of a native Londoner. This impression was further enhanced by the dusky tone of her skin. She might have been Arabic, her complexion reminiscent of women I had met during my military service in Northern Africa.

I was certain I did not know her. I would unquestioningly have remembered her piercing grey eyes, her long, straight black hair, her unique height. She was wearing an expensive gown of burgundy silk; a glance across her body assured me she was not wearing a corset – an outrage against current fashion.

“Of course,” I answered, though in fact slightly annoyed at the intrusion. Nevertheless I gestured toward the seat beside mine.

When she was settled there, I reseated myself. She regarded me with a smile, quite brilliant, its only flaw a narrow gap between her front teeth, though that furthered a certain aspect of feral energy she exuded.

“Are you newly joined?” I asked.

“What, your Hellfire Club? No. I crashed your little gathering, if the truth be told.”

“Remarkable. Dulcey let you pass?”

“You mean the pornographer?” she laughed. “I simply told him how much I enjoyed his artistry, and he was putty.”

“Hm. And how did you come to know about us?”

“I know a great many things, Dr. Wilder.”

“You have the advantage of me.”

“Call me Damaris. So, to herald Christmas, we are to see Osiris fucking Isis?”

And I had considered Cathy to have a streak of bluntness.

She went on. “A much older depiction of life's power than a baby born in a stable. Appropriate, I suppose. Tonight's Isis is an acquaintance of yours, is she?”

“In a professional sense. But I respect her very much. Her successes as a person are well earned, and defy any stereotype one might be tempted to give because of her profession.”

“A worthy answer. And what I would have expected, as you have the reputation of being a worthy man.”

“You seem to know a great deal about me, madam.”

“Damaris.”

I nodded. “Damaris. Are you and I acquainted in some manner I'm unaware of?”

“Indirectly. It's actually your father that I know quite well.”

“My...” So her intimacy with the details of my life that she seemed to be flaunting had gone astray. I was a lifelong orphan.

“I have no father,” I responded.

“You're alive, aren't you? That means you have a father. Ah,” she leaned toward the stage, “but I see our little divinity play is about to begin.”

Dulcey had noisily mounted the stage, and waved for attention. The murmur of voices around the theatre hushed in slow stages, until finally settling into quiet.

“Welcome fellow devotees of the occult and the carnal,” he immediately launched into oratory. “The Hellfire Club recognizes the arrival of Christmas in one way only: as a signpost of ancient power, and our own ability to commune with that power.”

“Charming,” Damaris leaned close to my ear to whisper. “He's an idiot, but more correct than he knows.”

“Before recorded time,” Dulcey went on, “the god Osiris was betrayed by his brother Set, cut into pieces, and his mutilated body scattered. But his wife the goddess Isis gathered the pieces, stitched them together, and through intercourse with her husband, restored him to life long enough to conceive the god Horus, who in time would exact revenge, and clear the world of ancient evils.

“We are not so narrow as to judge evil by Christian standards, or even those of the Egyptian pantheon. But we do recognize the power of life's passion. I give you Osiris and Isis.”

Dulcey quit the stage, undoubtedly to man his camera. The curtain rose, and there stood Cathy in faux Egyptian finery. She was actually quite magnificent. She launched into her own oratory – good poetry, which she delivered flawlessly. Further exposition along the lines that Dulcey had offered, though more moving when spoken by her. The ultimate power of love...its expression through the hungers of the body...the immortality of passion.

I glanced at Damaris, who watched and listened with a look of amusement. I considered what might be the motive of this woman for her imposition upon me. The comment about my father exposed her as a poseur of some kind...but to what purpose? Men and women of the Hellfire Club – even if she professed to be an outsider – were distinctly addicted to all manner of vices. Her intent could be anything from some sort of clandestine business or social proposition, to a desired seduction, to blackmail for my simply being present during what would soon be a semi-public fornication.

The latter did not overly worry me, there were far more affluent targets available in this theatre should she desire that. The former possibilities, given her unique charisma, might be intriguing.

On the stage, a secondary curtain had been raised, behind which, atop a dais, was the prone figure of a naked man. A well put-together specimen, Dulcey had hired him for the evening from a brothel catering to homosexual men, the very existence of which the authorities denied. Thankfully his lack of costume had not been supplemented by something as garish as painted-on stitches to portray Isis' skill with a needle in thread in putting her husband back together.

Cathy approached the “corpse” with impressive reverence, and after speaking a few more poetic lines, began the process of his resurrection, which was accomplished by energetic fellatio.

Harsher lighting came up, less for artistic effect than the necessary brightness for Dulcey's sequential daguerreotype to capture marketable images. An interesting machine, it burned a sequence of pictures to plates fairly rapidly, and when transferred to prints, they could be played in a device called a magic lantern, which flipped quickly from one image to the next to produce the illusion of motion.

A pornographer's dream; Hugh would reap significant dividends from this performance when it was made available to fanciers of underground eros.

Osiris showed that he was not only prompted to sexual excitement by male attentions. Cathy's fellatio raised him to an impressive erection.

I glanced again to my side to see Damaris' response to this. Despite her jaded manner, she clearly found the sight to be a thrill; she watched with what I would judge to be arousal trumping her somewhat-mocking attitude of amusement.

Having prepared dead Osiris to father her falcon-headed son, Isis mounted him for the consummation. Her skirt had been designed to open fully, and she completely lacked undergarments, so the coupling could be viewed clearly by all.

I received no mystical exaltation from the intercourse of the entwined divinities, but I did find it in its way to be beautiful. I did not find sex degrading, as common morals dictated it was. All of Dulcey's brazenly transparent claims to artistry aside, I found the acts of sex to naturally possess both animal vitality and a kind of grace. Having privately experienced the nuances of Cathy's passion, I could see that her expression of transport was genuine. She raised herself up from her consort at the moment of his climax, to fully allow the spurting of his restored life to be witnessed, though had Isis done so in the legendary climactic moment, Horus' conception might well have been jeopardized.

The curtain dropped.

Damaris took a deep breath, licked her lips, then turned toward me again.

“A fine fuck,” she said.

I did not answer, but regarded her silently. Whatever she had accosted me to propose, I suspected now would be the time for it to come out.

“Do you find this sort of thing pleasurable, Dr. Wilder?”

“To a degree, yes.”

“I do too. A game, of course, but enjoyable.”

“So you're not one to seek for occult gratification in sex? That's what the Hellfire Club attempts to provide, or at least claims to attempt that.”

She smiled. “They have no idea.”

“And you do?”

“May I call you James? James, the esoteric power in sex is, quite literally, limitless. Are you familiar with concepts like the Anthropos, or Primal Man, the Fullness, the Pleroma and Kenoma, the Aeons and the Archons?”

“I am not. A belief structure of some sort?”

“A very old one. But very potent.”

“That's interesting.”

To my surprise, she did not pursue the topic, but stood, clearly intending to depart.

“I'm glad you find it so,” she said. “I'd enjoy discussing it with you in greater depth. You have a liking for secret societies. Perhaps I can introduce you to one that makes these effete debauchees look like the mindless pricks and cunts they are.”

I stood also, at a loss for words.

“No need to see me out, dear James. We've started the weave of a crimson thread between us. I'll call on you. For now, a merry Christmas to you.”

She began moving along the row of seats toward the aisle.

“What is your last name?” I called after her.

“I have quite a few,” she turned her head enough for me to once again see her sardonic smile. “I think in time you'll come to enjoy calling me Ruha.”

To: Malcolm Deeley <admin@gromagonpress.com>

Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2017 7:33 AM

Subject: Re: Abyss Chapter 3 and payment

Dude Mal, thanks We are traveling today will read this tonight. I have Chapter one, but I don't see Chapter Two in my gmail, can you resend?

Can't wait to read this...

On Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 10:57 AM Malcolm Deeley <admin@gromagonpress.com> wrote:

Hey Jace,

I just sent along the Chapter 3 illustrations payment, it should be in your PayPal now. And without further ado, meet Grace X:

The snowstorm grew stronger in the night, with windblown flakes sweeping against my bedroom window and gathering in the interstices of the panes through the passing hours. Cathy would indeed have her white Christmas. Tired from her performance as Isis, and desiring to have an early start to Christmas morning with her children, she’d preferred not to indulge in a second bout of lovemaking after our departure from the Narcissus. So I had escorted her home and left her with a fond kiss goodnight, after which I returned to the apartment I kept above my medical office.

Lacking in family and uninterested in religion, Christmas was usually a solitary holiday for me; I was comfortable with that. I would often pass the day reading or writing. So upon waking, I dressed, went downstairs, pulled a few tomes from the shelf of my small personal library, and settled in with a hot cup of coffee in the receiving room of my office.

Not a day for going out in any event. Before I had left my bedroom, a look out the window at the alley behind my building showed it to be heavily drifted with the new snow.

I thought about Damaris and the strange, brief conversation we had shared. I gave no credence to the allusion she’d made to knowing my father; I’d come to the conclusion that had been a shot in the dark which had gone wide, part of the woman’s attempt to work her way closer to me for reasons yet unknown. Her hit and run technique of introducing herself had been equally odd, as had her speech, which had seemed to hold equal parts aesthete and gutter-dweller. I thought it quite likely I would never see or hear from her again. Hellfire Club members were eccentrics par excellence, given to sometimes bizarre methods for amusing themselves.

By the time I reached the bottom of my coffee cup, I was deep into a volume articulating the tenets of various Christian and non-Christian fringe religions, seeing if I might strike a reference to any of the names she had tossed off in parting. The terms Aeon and Archon were vaguely familiar…and Anthropos suggested roots in primitive humanity. But nothing presented itself to give framework to such concepts.

I was about to rise and reheat the coffee pot for a second cup, when to my great surprise, I heard a knock at the door. A caller, on Christmas Day, in a snowstorm?

I had no footman or private secretary, I was a firm believer that a man should answer his own doors. So a few moments later I pulled open the door to an unusual vision.

On the stoop stood a woman, bundled like a Cossack in a hooded greatcoat. I saw no carriage – she must have walked through the storm, and had done so alone.

“Come in, come in please,” I ushered her into the foyer and closed the door against the snow.

For a moment she stood there silently, her snow-coated outer attire almost immediately beginning to steam. Then she turned toward me and lowered her hood.

“Dr. James Wilder?”

For a few long heartbeats I simply stared. Her skin was milk-white. Not just the pallor affected by aristocrats to display that others performed labor in the sun for them, but completely stark; I realized she was an albino. Her hair, long but tied back at the nape of her neck, was jet black; it must have been dyed. She wore smoked glasses, round rimmed and also black, so I was not actually able to see her eyes. The glasses gave me a brief thought that she might be blind, but she had no cane, and was clearly, by her movements, sighted.

“Yes, I’m Dr. Wilder. This is extraordinary, considering the holiday and the storm. Let me take your coat.”

She submitted readily to my removing her greatcoat, which I hung on a stand beside the door. She bent to brush snow away from her high-laced boots, then took off her wet gloves, handing those to me also. Once again, I was struck by the pale white of her skin as her hands were revealed. She wore no nail polish, which made her fingers seem spectral.

I placed the gloves on a drying trivet beside my own, which I’d put there after coming in last night.

“You’re most kind,” she said. “Please forgive the unorthodox timing. You have holiday guests, perhaps?”

“No no, Christmas is just another day for me. Please, would you join me in my receiving room?”

“Thank you, doctor.”

I indicated the direction, and allowed her to precede me. Looking at her from behind, I tried to form an impression beyond the striking quality of her albinism. A woman of perhaps forty, with the appearance of good health; only a few inches shorter than me, though some of that height could be attributed to the heels of her boots, which were severe, considering she had just been walking in a snowstorm. She moved with purpose and confidence, displaying none of the tentativeness that women sometimes either consciously or unconsciously fell into when visiting a doctor.

I guided her to the chair before my desk, then circled around her, closed the book I had been reading, and picked up my coffee cup. The room had no fireplace, but the gaslight contributed to a gentle warmth. As the room had no windows, the storm and cold were closed off.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. I was about to heat coffee, may I bring you a cup?”

Her lips curled in a very slight smile. “I have a weakness for African coffee.”

“I’m not sure of the source, beyond my grocer,” I answered. “Black? I have sugar, if you wish.”

“Black is fine.”

I left her for a moment, to put more coal into the iron stove and reheat the pot. When I returned with two steaming cups, I noticed her rebuttoning one sleeve of her blouse. Perhaps it had twisted or bunched under her coat, becoming uncomfortable, and she had smoothed it while waiting. I gave that no thought.

She accepted the coffee, cradling the mug with both hands, then brought it to her pale lips and sipped.

“Good,” she acknowledged.

“I’m glad,” I said, seating myself behind my consulting desk. “Again, it’s quite extraordinary that you should be out on such a day, Miss…”

“Mrs. Grace Xavier. Though my husband is deceased, I retain the title from our marriage for the sake of remembrance. I felt some urgency in seeing you, Dr. Wilder. Christmas has little meaning for me either…I live in a world of realities, rather than fancies of God and his machinations.”

“You have an interesting way of phrasing things. But urgency in what way? Are you suffering in some manner I might help to ease?”

“Perhaps.” She smiled again, taking another sip of her coffee. “Though I’m in no pain requiring immediate attention, doctor. My urgency stemmed from a rumor I’ve heard of your imminent departure from London…I did wish to see you before you took any form of extended leave from England.”

“Departure? I have no such plans, Mrs. Xavier. Where would you have heard such a thing?”

“Really. Perhaps I’ve been misinformed.” She looked at me with some intensity, though her dark glasses made it hard to judge the nature of that intenseness. The black lenses were perfectly opaque, presenting a wall between myself and her eyes. As I sipped my own coffee I returned her gaze, studying the lines of her face. Her features had a patrician quality which would by anyone be considered quite striking, in a way actually enhanced by her alabaster skin tone.

“I assure you, I’ve no upcoming business outside of London.”

“Well then, I’m glad my intrusion finds you not immersed in holiday festivities, at least. I had inquired in the medical community after noted researching-physicians, where your name features prominently.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Does it? That’s gratifying, though I was not distinctly aware of it.”

“Our conversation is at sixes and sevens, doctor. Round and round…I wouldn’t have taken you for a dissembler.”

Between Damaris last night and Grace today, this seemed to have become a season for the company of odd women.

“Well, you’re here, and I’m glad to be of assistance in any way I can.” I offered.

She pursed her lips slightly, then nodded. “Though you display a personal diplomacy in not mentioning it, my condition can hardly have escaped you.”

“Your albinism.”

“Yes. All kind gentility aside, doctor, do you find it freakish, or disturbing?”

“By no means. I’m not an expert, but I would hardly consider possessing a genetic condition which makes you unique, to prompt any kind of negative impression. You’re clearly a woman both articulate and discerning, you display a personal dignity in manner. I have no doubt your husband found you beautiful.”

Her smile at that was broader. “Your repute for charm also precedes you, Dr. Wilder. I see it’s earned.”

“May I ask who specifically referred you to me?”

She seemed not to have heard the question.

“I gave up all thoughts as a very little girl indeed that being an albino might be a curable condition,” she continued. “But there are subsidiary aspects to it that perhaps an ardent researcher might be conscious of.” She tapped her glasses. “Photophobia being one. Light is difficult for me. And beyond that, nystagmatism.”

I had heard of both conditions, the first not uncommon even in normally-pigmented individuals, the second much rarer. Called “wandering eye”, or its cruder appellation, “crazy eye”.

“Your pupils drift, Mrs. Xavier?”

“That they do. These glasses assist practically with my light sensitivity, but they also help in preventing people from running in screaming fear when I give them the eye, so to speak.”

“Does their movement impede or confuse your vision?”

“My world slides and lurches and is given to convulsions and distortion, doctor. Perhaps that is the true nature of the world, when you consider it. In that sense your steady eyes may be the ones deceiving you.”

Interesting notion. Despite her strangeness, I was finding myself taken with her calmly philosophic erudition.

“I wish I could offer something in the way of new procedures for approaching nystagmus,” I said. “The eye is not a specialty of mine, though I would be happy to inquire for you among my circle of colleagues. May I see?”

“Of course.” She leaned forward, setting her coffee cup on the desk, inviting me closer.

I set down my own cup, circled to her side, and as she tilted her head upward, I gently removed her glasses. Her eyes were not the red hue often attributed to albinos, but had a grey-green color, though very pale. As I looked, the pupil of the right eye slid distinctly to the inward side, as if she was trying to view the tip of her nose. With rapidity that was almost alarming, the left pupil traveled upward, quite at odds with the right.

“I see.”

“In moments when I am passionate or excited, they will sometimes move in circles,” she said. “Quite a sight. For me as well as anyone witnessing it. Were they doing so right now, to my view you would pulse and throb as if you were gripped by a cyclone, doctor.”

“Despite that, you move with very great poise, Mrs. Xavier.”

“Thank you. One adjusts. As a young thing, I was given to falling down and banging into things. My mother considered me stupid.”

I stepped back, even as the pupil which had raced upward re-centered, then dropped abruptly down. I handed her back her glasses, which she put back on.

“Stupid? Why should she think that?”

“She is not an accepting person. Nor a kind one. She considered me thoroughly defective.”

“I’m sorry. That’s just a form of ignorance.”

“Oh, she’s anything but ignorant. Simply of the opinion that any child of hers should have been perfect. I’m surprised she didn’t dump me out of my cradle into an alley, or the river.”

I was unsure what response to give to that. I imagined, in the light of such intolerance, her childhood must have been something of a nightmare.

She however, did not seem disposed to leave the subject.

“I’ve never been quite sure of how much she really believes of her own stated philosophies. She touts the pursuit of perfection, as if any such thing really exists.” Once again from behind the obscuring lenses, she took a long look at me. “I can see why she would be taken with you. You’re a good-looking creature, well-muscled if I’m any judge, which I would expect…formed with a certain natural power. Your own skin-tone is rather a unique bronze, doctor. A man cast in metal would appeal to her greatly.”

She had quite lost me. I still stood right in front of her, and she surprised me slightly by digging one hand along the side of the seat cushion. As if when she earlier had adjusted the sleeve of her blouse, that had been a result of removing something from concealment and hiding it for easy access beside the cushion. I looked down at her hand even as she stood up.

In it was a blackjack, a sight more likely to be seen in the hand of a cheapside thug bent on murder. As I opened my mouth to speak she brought it up with remarkable speed and cracked it across my temple.

I awakened with pain lancing through my head.

At first I could not remember what had happened, and in that moment of disorientation I tried to sit up, but to my shock I found myself to be restrained. With a degree of wildness I pitted my strength against those restraints, but to no effect. I was in bed, but my arms and legs had been stretched outward so my body was in the shape of an X, spread-eagled and tied to the headboard and lower bedposts. I had been stripped naked.

Standing by the bedside, looking down at me, was Grace.

She had also removed much of her clothing, leaving on only her white laced corset, her boots, and her dark glasses.

“What…” I began to speak, but she reached down and put a finger to my lips.

“I probably should have put sand instead of buckshot into the blackjack,” she said very matter-of-factly. “But I was unsure what degree of force it would take to put you down.”

I yanked at the straps around my wrists. She had used belts from my own wardrobe to do the tying. She removed her finger from my lips.

“Why?”

“For pity’s sake, no more dissembling, Dr. Wilder. It will gain you nothing now. Though it was foolish of Ruha not to warn you against me. She has underestimated me for my whole life, however. Why should she change now?”

“Ruha.” The name the woman at the Narcissus had used. “Do you mean Damaris?”

“Or whatever name you feel like applying to her. Despite your denials, what could she have been doing but preparing to spirit you off to Africa?”

“Africa? This is insanity. I’ve exchanged perhaps a dozen words with the woman, and most of those were nonsense.”

“You’re not convincing me. Give it up, doctor. You were a captain in the English army, were you not? Call upon the resolve inherent in such a position, and show some courage.”

I pulled again at the belts around my wrists.

Watching me, she nodded. “Better,” she said. “I prefer you angry and fighting, rather than filled with pleas or deceit. I take no pleasure in this, doctor.”

“What is it you think you’re achieving?” I glanced at the bedroom window, to see the snowstorm was still raging. No one could be expected to come to my office below. The next house in the row abutted this one closely, but the walls were thick; I had no expectation that shouting or crying out would bring any form of assistance.

“What I’ve always striven to achieve. You might think it selfishness doctor, but unlike the Archons, who extend their lives in a state of perpetual, monstrous greed, I extend mine with a desire to forestall their greater cruelties. I use their methods out of necessity.”

“I’m at sea, Mrs. Xavier. Nothing that you say makes any sense.”

She sighed. “Now you are going to make me angry. My personal issues with my mother aside, what she and the rest of them stand for is repugnant. Are you just her puppy-dog, then? Or has your own animosity toward your father led you to throw in with her?”

“Again, my father. She spoke about that too. I’ve never known my father.” I thought about the rest of her statement. “Your mother? You are claiming Damaris is your mother? Surely she is of an age with you, or even younger.”

She raised a fingertip to the fine lines around her eyes. “Yes, her techniques of vitality are more refined. But I had to steal what knowledge I have. Or extract it from servants like you. I’m guessing you don’t even have the elixir in your blood yet. But even at that, the ritual remains efficacious.”

“Ritual.”

“Yes doctor. The very same, with a few omissions, that you were on your way to Africa to experience. Normally what you would take from your partner in it would a key to long, long life. But I have no intention of giving you my pearl. Long life may be a reach for you, at this point.”

“Why should you want to do me harm?”

“I don’t want to per se. But I am the antithesis to the Archons…I prey on their servants as a form of disruption and opposition. I’m the heroine in this penny dreadful, doctor.”

“I’m no one’s servant.”

“Their toy then, their chess-piece, or perhaps in your case, their prince. Is that how you see yourself?”

“I don’t even understand your use of ‘Archon’. Damaris said it too.”

“Good for you if you reject all of the Gnostic mummery. Ruha seems to believe in it, but as I said, I never know how much of what she spouts she really believes.”

I opened the fingers of each hand, despite the restraints around my wrists, in a gesture of conciliation.

“You’ve made some very great errors in this, Mrs. Xavier. Whatever matters you are talking about, I know nothing of them. Release me, and let’s talk about it with some measure of sanity.”

She smiled. “Within five seconds of my undoing those belts, you would doubtless put those strong, lovely bronze hands around my throat and throttle me, after which perhaps you would ravish my corpse…an act Archons seem to enjoy greatly.”

“I assure you…”

“Enough.” She had set something on my bedside table, and reached to pick it up. By twisting my head, I saw that she had in hand one of my own scalpels. “I brought my own knife, but your medical instruments are far superior, Dr. Wilder. Though their use likely won’t lessen your pain, it will probably speed things along so you won’t have to endure it quite so long.”

“Again, what reason do you have to kill me?”

“You may survive, doctor. I may be rightly called a murderess a number of times over, but I’m going to presume your own soldier’s experience inured you to guilt over death meted out in the course of war, which at its heart this certainly is. Nevertheless, I prefer not to leave pure slaughter in my wake. I’ve instructed an agent of mine to, in about an hour’s time, heave a brick through a window of Ruha’s townhouse, wrapped with a message explaining your current distress. If she truly cares one whit about you she may come to your rescue, as you’ll still be alive when you and I are done here.”

She placed the scalpel on the bed near my hip. She then went to the small writing desk I kept there in the bedroom. I saw that she had brought her greatcoat up from the foyer and draped it across the desk's chair. Reaching into a pocket she produced a small flat pouch. Inside of that was a syringe. At the sight of it, I once again strained at the belts.

“Men I've placed in positions similar to yours often have difficulty achieving the erection I require,” she said, tapping the central vial of the syringe, which was filled with a pale green liquid. “Understandable. Though interestingly, terror produces immediate arousal in some. For all your posturings toward being masters of the world, I've found you gentlemen to be primitive beings. At the core, either sadists or masochists. I'll take you for the former, doctor, more likely to raise a hard length were I the one tied to the bed, at your mercy.”

She used the plunger to coax a few drops of the green liquid from the tip of the needle, removing any possibility of producing an air embolism in my bloodstream. She then brought the needle to my groin.

“One of the Archons' concoctions,” she continued. “A blood stimulant that should also produce pleasurable sensations in you. It will blur your ability to think, doctor. Count that a blessing. You'll have difficulty differentiating pleasure and pain.” She smiled slightly. “Now, you'll feel a prick.”

I raised my head to see her apply the needle's point near the root of my cock. The brief pain of its insertion almost immediately changed. A heat surged into me, quickly radiating outward from my loins.

“Did she describe the archetype of her precious Gnostic Primal Man to you? As a precursor to his death, a fire will supposedly burst from the genitals of the Anthropos. In that moment he is a being of exquisite power. Even if you find that all as absurd as I do, allow it to reach an atavistic place in your brain, doctor. It may prompt you to a somewhat primeval, but nonetheless intense state. Again, a mercy for you, which will also enhance the quality of what you yield up to me.”

Toward the end of her speech, her words slurred in my ears. Her movement back to the writing desk to return the now-empty syringe to its pouch appeared to transpire across an elongated passage of time.

As the fire in my cock spread, poking hot needles into my every extremity, I watched her remove her dark glasses and come back to the bed.

I blinked my own eyes, raised my head again and looked down the length of my body, seeing that I had raised a towering erection. Though no stranger to sexual hunger, I had never felt it rampage through me as it did now. Grace, as she approached, appeared no longer human, which echoed he own words about the Primal Man; she had become a feminine absolute. The raw need to possess her was overwhelming. My fingers opened and closed, clutching at her, and I heard myself growling in frustration because of the restraints.

I bent all of my strength to breaking those bonds...I felt the leather of the belts stretch...

Grace slapped my face hard, snapping my concentration from the goal of ripping my arms loose from the bonds.

“Yes, I can see why Ruha wanted you,” she said. “A man of metal for her, to own and control. Like the Greek automaton Talos. Beware of Medea, O Talos.”

She climbed onto the bed, swung a leg over my middle-body to straddle me, and sank down, impaling herself on my cock. I gasped, the pleasure-messages rushing to my brain causing a further weakening of my resolve to break free. She leaned down and kissed me, withdrawing almost immediately – and well for her that she did, as a vision raced through me of darting my head upward and sinking my teeth into her, tearing out the great veins in her neck. Madly, I longed to feel the spray of her blood on my face.

“You are Death now, aren't you?” she breathed out, her words ragged with her own passion. “That's what Archons and would-be Archons lust for, under it all.”

I stared up at her face. Her obscuring glasses absent, I saw the phenomenon she had described: the movement of her wayward pupils in circles. Drifting in tiny orbits, as if stirred by the energies of a soul that whirled like a maelstrom.

She raised and lowered her hips with ever-increasing violence, taking my shaft to what felt like an infinite depth inside her body. As the distortion of my perceptions increased, I veered between lucid moments of attempting to convince myself that these were hallucinogenic perceptions, while alternately surrendering to them with a crazed fervor that bordered on revelation.

I actually witnessed an effect around our bodies – an emanation of boiling tendrils of heat and light, my own energies fleeing from my body to enter hers. They gripped her, wrapping around her arms and legs, her neck, probing into her mouth. To my own horror I willed those palpable energies to kill her. To hold her pinioned, to choke her, believing in my fever that as she died, both my essence and hers, heightened to unmeasureable potency, would flow back into me.

She picked up the scalpel.

My whole body tensed, but at first she did no more than cut a rough swatch of fabric from my bedcovers, which she promptly stuffed into my mouth.

“I'm not concerned with screaming,” she said. “Your teeth are gnashing, and I'd hate to see you bite through your own tongue. Should you live until tomorrow, I'd prefer you to be able to speak.”

She then pivoted to face away from me, without at any time allowing my phallus to slip free from the cleft of her sex.

“Bite down on the cloth, doctor.”

She reached downward beyond my vision, and pain exploded from my groin. In the same moment I ejaculated, equally ravaging my senses with pleasure. I felt a wet heat splash my inner thighs, but my cock was still inside Grace, so I had not expelled my sperm onto my own flesh.

The horrific pain increased. Wrenching my head upward in a desperation to see, I observed a jet of blood fountain from the area of my genitals beyond Grace's obscuring body.

My lust to kill her doubled and redoubled with every wave of mixed ecstasy and pain. As those homocidal desires raged, eyes seemed to burst out across the expanse of her back. Grace's crazy-eyes, endlessly roving, but also seeming to look deep, deep into me.

I felt shame in the knowledge that she must surely see, and recognize, the violence in me.

The bloodlust eased...I quieted, my convulsions lessening, though I was still engulfed in almost incomprehensible levels of agony.

Grace's form returned to something like normalcy, its only strangeness being that which would never leave her. She had been hunched over to work with the scalpel, but now her back straightened; the ghostly-white skin smooth again. I could indirectly see her masticating something, which she finally swallowed.

She raised herself up from my erection, and in so doing turned slightly to the side. There was blood on her mouth, blood on her hands. The scalpel, when she dropped it back on the bed, left a spreading bloom of red on the covers.

I could not control my mind enough to attempt comprehending what she had done. Slumping as if every string in my body had been cut, I ceased all struggling.

Perhaps I lost consciousness. What I did know, when next I opened my eyes, was that more than a few moments had passed.

Grace, now standing over me, pulled the wadded fabic out of my mouth.

“If you sleep, it is very likely you will die.”

She was dressed in her greatcoat, her dark lenses again over her eyes. With the scalpel, which still showed crimson stains, she cut the belt away from my right wrist. She then put the blade in my hand.

“You have several choices. If you lay there you may bleed to death, or in a few moments more, burn to death. If all of this has been too much for you, the scalpel can give you a quick end.” She began moving away from me, toward the bedroom door. “If you choose to live, do me a service when next you see Ruha. Tell her Saklas is irritated with her. And had she been wise, she should have drowned me as an infant when she had the chance. Instead, the day is not far off when I will feast on her instead of her servants.”

[cumonbucky]

Prompt List

Hello friends! In honor of me hitting 3k a couple of days ago, I’ve decided to do some drabbles! Below is a list of prompts that YOU can choose from! Once you’ve figured out what prompt/quote you want, come pop it in my ask!

The characters you can choose from are Bucky (40′s if you’d like), Lance, Seb (obvi), and Blaine (from Hot Tub Time Machine + I’ll try my very best!) (and maybe Jefferson, Chris Beck, TJ Hammond and Carter Baizen).

Oh! Also the “______” in some of the quotes are blanks meaning whichever character you choose, their name will go there. For example, if you choose #7 with Lance it would be: “Lance, no.” “Lance, YES.”

Alright, let’s get this show on the road!

1. “Please don’t leave me.”

2. “Grab my ass one more time and see what happens.”

3. “This is me. I am the eye of the storm and my heart is a little broken but if you want me, I’m yours.”

4. “You’re with him till the end of the line but what about me?”

5. “The more you weigh, the harder you are to kidnap. Stay Safe. Eat cake.”

6. “Y/N no.” + “Y/N yes.”

7. “______, no.” + “______, YES.”

8. “Are you eating again?”

9. “What are you doing?” + “Trying to use my telekinesis to bring the remote to me.”

10. “You dare insult me mortal?”

11. “What is life without a little risk?”

12. “I don’t think this was a good idea.” + “This was your idea.”

13. “I’m feeling as fresh as freshly baked toast.”

14. “The last time I was someone’s type, I was donating blood.”

15. “Women are always stealing my shirts.”

16. “You’re a flawless piece of shit.”

17. “You’re a babe.”

18. “Do you still like me?” + “We’re married.”

19. “You run your heart like a hotel - you’ve always got people checking in and checking out.”

20. “We’re falling apart.” + “Because you’re not trying!”

21. “I like you, you squid!”

22. “It frustrates me how much I love you and you don’t know. But, I like being frustrated. I don’t mind being frustrated if it’s because of you.”

23. “I know there are pretty girls at this school but none of them are as beautiful as you, darlin’.”

24. “I’m straight up lovable.”

25. “I thought you loved me, not him.”

26. “You’re hot when you’re jealous.”

27. “You like riding things? Ride me.”

28. “I didn’t understand a word you just said. I don’t speak French.” + “I wasn’t speaking French.”

29. “I’m not supposed to laugh, right?”

30. “I’m so tired of being lonely.”

31. “Eat me.”

32. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

33. “Are you drunk?”

34. “You look just like my girlfriend!” + “Oh shit, you are my girlfriend.”

35. “You know I’m not gonna fall asleep until you make out with me.”

36. “My penis is bigger than yours.” + “You don’t have a penis.”

37. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re actually human.”

38. “Our relationship is canceled until further notice.”

39. “You’re so wrong.” + “So wrong, I’m right.”

40. “Who said you could be friends with my mom?” + “Your mom.”

41. “Why am I dating you.”

42. “This is pretty good.” + “That’s our baby’s food.”

43. “I’m forrealsies this time.” + “I can’t believe you just said forrealsies.”

44. “I know I say I love you but I love you.”

45. “Stop kissing me! You’re spreading your gross germs!”

46. “We really need to stop watching Criminal Minds at two in the morning.”

47. “I don’t get jealous.”

48. “Can I sit here?” + “You can sit on my face.”

49. “Why should I trust you?”

50. “Are you flirting with me?” + “Oh my god I’ve been flirting with you for the past two years.”

51. “You deserve better.”

52. “When were you gonna tell me that you’re pregnant?”

53. “If I had that face, I’d cry too.”

54. “So… about that blowjob.”

55. “How the hell did you end up in jail?” + “It’s a long story.”

56. “Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and go ‘wow, I’m so beautiful’ because same.”

57. “Calm down all I did was break his nose.”

58. “Why are you so clingy?”

59. “I just wanna.. touch.. your boobs.”

60. “Touch me.”

61. “Don’t fucking try me, I’ll whip my Harry Potter wand out on you.”

62. “I just really love you, okay?”

63. “You better not be friend-zoning me.”

64. “All I’m asking is for you to love me back, is that so hard?”

65. “Did you just squeeze my ass?” + “Yeah, it was really firm.”

66. “You look good enough to eat.”

67. “Why don’t you like me?”

68. “Oh my god you cheated, didn’t you?”

69. “No don’t go in there!” + “Why is there a puppy in the closet?”

70. “I’m feeling really attacked right now.”

71. “You’re a big ball of happiness mixed with cute things and sprinkles.”

72. “Marry me.”

73.  “So this is it? You’re just leaving?”

74. “So between me and James Franco, who would you choose?” + “Don’t ask that, you’ll only get hurt.”

75. “You’re so goddamn beautiful.”

76. “Squids have eyes and a mouth and we have eyes and a mouth. We’re basically squids.”

77. “I love you and it hurts that you don’t love me back.”

78. “I love you so damn much and it scares me, okay?”

79. “Y/N, I have something to tell you…. I’m pregnant.” + “You’re a man, _____”

80. “I’ve never kissed anyone.” + “This is a problem.”

81. “I don’t know why I like you so much and it frustrates the hell out of me.”

82. “You’re gorgeous and captivating. Like I said, I want you.”

83. “I know I say I don’t want a relationship but you make me want to have one… with you.”

84. “I know you’ve given me your all and too, too many chances but please… give me one more chance.”

85. “So do you wanna like.. date me and stuff?”

86. “We should bang - shit, I mean hang.”

87. “You look happy and it’s killing me.”

88. “Say it again.” + “I love you.”

89. “I can’t believe you cheated.” + “It was just Mariokart.”

90. “Why wear underwear when you could wear none.”

91. “I think we got married last night.”

92. “I won’t bite… hard.”

93. “Do I make you horny baby? Do I? Do I make you randy?” + “Okay one, you need to stop watching Austin Powers and two, I am completely turned off now.”

94. “Do you really love her ______?”

95. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

96. “Stop pushing me away and just let me love you!”

97. “Can I do your makeup?” + “Only if you make me look super hot.”

98. “Can we just cuddle until our bodies become one with the bed?”

99. “Oh my god ______ I’m so sorry I thought - I didn’t know you were doing… that.”

100. A quote of your choice.

Some of the quotes are from those of you who sent me one, others are from movies, I think tv shows, some just popped into my head and some are things my ex girlfriend told me :)

[bpdkipland]

literally do them all lmao For the strawberry: a lizard person, a little gray alien, an orb, and the Burger King himself For mr horse: ur opinion on the Charmin toilet paper bears

thank you so much anon fuc ily 

🐰 what is one secret that you’ve never told anyone? 

yikes startin out w a hard one then um when i was a kid i had such a stressful emotional time that it caused me to wet the bed until i was like 12 or 13? it was fuct up 

💗 if you could hug anyone, who would it be? 

probs my crush or my friend jacob bc he gives gr8 hugs ♥♥

🐹 what are some of your favourite Pokémon and why? 

Lugia bc when i was little i had a card that was all holographic and it had lugia on it. i never really got super into pokemon lol 

🌠 if you were in charge of the world, what would the world look like? 

oh god it would be a mess 

👀 what was the most recent vivid dream that you had? 

honestly the only one coming to mind is the one i had as a kid where this creature opened up its head and ate my sister and im still scared of going outside in the dark to this day bc of it 

☀️ what do you like the most about your best friend? 

i have multiple best friends but theyre mostly all there for me whenever i need them? like one time jacob drove from the other side of town to give me earbuds bc i had lost mine 

😘 talk about your crush or partner 

GOD my crush is a literal angel???? like????? hoy fuk i love her so much she’s so sweet and kind and caring and she just radiates light and love and i got to kiss her on new years ♥♥♥♥

💁 if someone was rude to you, would you be rude back? 

depends on HOW rude they were. like,... i was nice to my ex for so long lol 

🌟 what do you like about yourself? (must choose at least 3 things!) 

i like my nose, freckles, and the fact that im Nice

🐾 what are you scared of most? how will you overcome it? 

well its being abandoned by everyone i love and guess what thats starting to happen and im coping lmao

🎁 what never fails to make you happy? 

this video

💙 what annoys you about some people? 

if they chew with their fockin mouth open i die 

😤 do you get angry easily? 

nope i actually am pretty slow to anger lol 

🐇 what do you always daydream about? 

do intrusive thoughts of people coming on to me count 

🌻 if you could change 3 things about the world what would you change? 

well no offense but republicans would be illegal. sent off to an island not allowed to communicate with the rest of the world lol, strawberries would be in season year round, and weed would be legal bc i cant think of anything else 

🍓 send me 4 names: kiss, befriend, kill or marry? 

kiss: orb ♥♥befriend: lizard person kill: k i l l t h e b o r g (burger king) marry: gray alien 

✈️ what is your dream city and why? 

ive not been to any good cities so i dont know 

☕️ talk about your ideal day 

hanging out with all my friends, they dont all hate each other, we all watch movies in a big cuddle puddle and im in the middle of it ♥♥

🌸 are you an introvert, ambivert or extrovert? 

definitely an ambivert. 

💧 when was the last time you cried? 

fuck????? i dont remember???? my eyes welled up yesterday does that count 

🎵 name 5 songs you love at the moment 

in no particular order: 1. Come On Eileen 2. Insomnia (by Dirty Heads) 3. Birdhouse in Your Soul4. Ana Ng5. Moving On (by James)

⚡️ if you had any superpower, what would it be and why? 

pyrokinesis so i can light all abusers on fire lol 

💛 if you could talk to your younger self, what would you say? 

Listen, kid, there’s a reason you hate yourself and there’s a reason you wanna die all the time but lemme tell you, it ain’t worth it. those hospital stays aren’t worth it. you might not believe it but you’re over 250 days clean! didn’t think you’d make it this far, huh? you also made it to 18 years of age. you’re gonna be okay, kid. 

💚 who are you jealous of and why? 

myself when i’m in a nice mood bc like??? shut yo nice ass up 

💎 which one would you rather have more of: intelligence, beauty, kindness, wealth or bravery? why? 

bravery honestly. i have reasons but i dont have words for the reasons rn 

🙊 what are you ashamed of? 

um that secret i told the fuck

🌺 which languages do you know? which do you want to learn? 

i know English and tiny bits of French and i’d love to become fluent in French and Italian? 

🍀 if you could be any fictional character’s best friend/lover, which fictional character would you be? 

i wanna be best friends with mike wazowski 

☁️ talk about your dream universe. 

???????

💜 which acts of kindness are you going to do today? 

it’s a bit late but did do some dishes for my mom cleaned off my desk so i could start painting again :> 

🐬 if you could transform into any animal/magical creature, what would you be and why? 

new c/r/yptid: Lance Cube.

🍄 talk about someone/something you really dislike 

y’know when ur eyes just start crying when the rest of u is fine?? like wow i didnt know i was supposed to be emotional but ig???? 

😣 talk about some things that have been making you depressed/angry/anxious lately 

i’m anxious because my doctors office isnt giving my medical records to the michigan works people im working with so they cant open a case for me, making it so they cant help me find a job bc of my mental illnesses 

   🍪 what did you want to be as a kid, and what do you want to be now?

 i wanted to be a veterinarian but now i wanna be a zookeeper 

🍰 what are some of your favourite sugary foods? 

i loooove peach rings and sour patch kids and !!!! strawberry shortcake 

🍑 what are you obsessed with? 

animal crossing tbh i love it so much 

💘 what happens to you when you’re stressed? 

i get auditory hallucinations and i just start crying no matter what stressed mood im in. angry stressed? crying. happy stressed? crying. anxious stressed? crying 

😪 what are you sick of? 

having kidney disease??? ?

🙀 are you an adrenaline seeker? 

i mean? sometimes? but yall gotta talk me into going on roller coasters 

💥 what are some unpopular opinions that you have? 

red beet eggs are my LIFE if i could eat them daily i would die, peppers are fucking gross, and tea is fucking gross unless its Tea 

☔️ would you consider yourself a good person? 

i like to think i am a good person? 

😊 what do you like to do as hobbies? 

draw & sing!!!! 

🎤 what’s the last song you hummed or sang by yourself? 

You Ain’t No Saint by Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties 

🐝 what’s your worst trait? how are you planning to improve it?

I’m annoying. I plan on improving it by shutting my ass up 

 🎨 what do you always doodle when you’re bored?

i draw people and eyes mainly. and the occasional hand 

🐻 what’s stopping you from chasing your dreams? 

i’m too shy and bisexual for this 

🌷 what’s your mbti personality and why do you think it suits you? 

fuck i dont remember i just know i have the same one as Fox Mulder and thats why it fits me lmao

🐶 send me 3 fictional people and I’ll choose my favourite! 

...u didnt give me 3 ppl.... 

👑 who are your favourite celebrities and why? 

mothman because he’s my boyfriend 

🐴 opinion on __? (Charmin Toilet Paper Bears) 

they wipe my ass for me 

🍋 do you consider yourself an emotional person? 

i used to be. now im not so sure. 

📚 share 3 books that you love and your favourite quote from them. 

yall i’ve only read 3 books 

😔 what do you always do when you feel sad? does it help?

i usually mope around and sleep a lot. it doesnt help usually. 

😌 what thoughts keep you going when you’re sad? 

Death Anxiety 

🌍 which country do you live in? 

USA! 

🐧 describe yourself in 3 words 

needy, petty, and damaged 

🐵 which quotes changed you? 

“What’s your Fursona” - @thebpdevil“Your job is to break death’s heart” 

💭 do you keep a diary? 

I keep a bullet journal!! i think thats kinda similar 

💫 who inspires you? 

honestly my dad??? but also idk :/ 

👻 do you believe in ghosts and why? 

hell YES because i am one

🎀 what’s your fashion sense like? 

department store clearance section & band merch 

🎬 what are some of your favourite films? 

Heathers, Taken, Girl Interrupted, and if u watch the OA in one shot it counts as a movie i’m counting it 

🍦 what is one treasured childhood memory? 

Throwing mashed potatoes at my sister. 

🐱 what’s your dream pet like? 

Cat snake (ferret) who loves to cuddle and doesnt bite :-) 

🐼 if you could meet anyone, who would it be? 

probably???? um???? Patrick Stump or Pete Wentz honestly. 

HOO THIS WAS FUN AND IT TOOK OVER AN HOUR TO DO THANK YOU