#sex and horror

[hadscloud]

Artwork by Takato Yamamoto

[rawwkfingers]

Thinkin about how essentially all horror media is so inextricably intertwined with sex and also how so much of kink is one step away from being horror and how consent is the only real dividing line between the two

[ohsofightclub]

[thestuffedalligator]

I read Fat Face by Michael Shea last month and it was. Fine? It was a Cthulhu Mythos story written in the 80s, it was very edgy and it had a lot of tropes I’m not a fan of, I don’t really recommend it, but I have to talk about one detail I have not stopped thinking about since I read it.

So. I knew Fat Face through reputation because it was the story that inspired Shoggoth Lords from the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG, shoggoths that can control their cellular makeup to look like humans. And the twist in Fat Face is that shoggoths have been hiding amongst humans in Los Angeles, and at the end of the story one of them eats the protagonist.

The tone of the story is grit. It’s grime. It’s sleaze and sexual violence and drug abuse on top of cosmic horror. It wants to be taken seriously so bad.

But here’s the thing about the shoggoths: they have a business.

They have two businesses they run out of an office building in downtown Los Angeles. A shoggoth is a primordial blob of eyes and mouths and flesh and hunger, and the idea of one of them at the LA Office of Finance registering an LLC is already. Great. Perfect. No notes.

The business is a front — and again, that’s great, a shoggoth went, “I want to do some nefarious deeds and not get caught by humans; I know, I’ll register a fake business that’ll be a front, and no human will ever suspect” — because the actual interior of this office is a room of pools of water made from black and ancient Antarctic rocks so that shoggoths can relax in their original blobby forms and eat stray animals that they’ve caught.

So it’s basically just. A place for shoggoths to unwind after a long day of pretending to be human. It’s portrayed as cosmic horror, but it’s shoggoth Cheers. Sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows your shape.

Here’s the kicker. The front of the business is a hydrotherapy clinic and stray pet rescue.

When they decided to make a front for their secret lair in an LA office building where they hang out in pools of water and eat stray animals — the front they prominently display and advertise — they decided to go with a hydrotherapy clinic and stray pet rescue.

That is Goosebumps shit. The rest of the story reads like a tone poem about the sleaze and violence of Los Angeles, and the main twist of the story reads like R.L. Stine.

But that’s not even the detail I can’t stop thinking about. Because the story reveals that this business — which again, is a front made by alien blobs to eat stray animals like an ALF-themed buffet and hang out in jacuzzi tubs of Antarctic rocks in an LA office — has a flyer.

Which means there’s a shoggoth with a passion for graphic design

[knifearo]

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

[space-bee3s]

I’ve been obsessed with that unwanted animal for like a week now

[wouldgaysexfixthem]

would gay sex fix them?

[raviollies]

I know it's been said but the changes to Maria really grate on me because....this doesn't even read as the same character anymore. Maria's design was purposeful, a very clear specific concept of a 'cool sexy girl who wears leopard print and crop tops, and have a belly button piercing and a tattoo' - it combines to a stand out character portrait of not just Maria but of James, because THATS what he finds sexy and was a stark contrast to modest, sickly Mary. The new design literally just looks like a teacher or a manager now, what the hell is that supposed to tell me about either of their sexualities.

And no this isn't a case of 'tHe cEnSorINg' - this is just misunderstanding the themes. Maria wasn't needlessly sexy, objectified for the viewer; her sex appeal was referenced in the story, and was an important part of it, one of the MAJOR themes.

[spitinsideme]

ragatha is playing along this is liks roleplay for her (pomni is serious about killing ragatha ans ragatha knows ir)

[newwavesylviaplath]

sept 01

[katakaluptastrophy]

What do Captain Deuteros, the Princesses of Ida, the Baron of Tisis, the Lady of Koniortos Court, the Duchess of Rhodes, the Master Templar, and the Reverend Daughter all have in common? They almost certainly own slaves.

Ok, not "slaves". As I'm sure Housers would be the first to tell you, they do not have slaves. Gideon herself explicitly establishes this in chapter one:

I’m indentured, not a slave.

But functionally, what does that mean?

We don't get a definition of what Gideon means by a slave, or how this word is used in House (do the Houses also have slaves? Are slaves something other, uncivilised people have in the benighted darkness beyond the light of Dominicus and the empire?). Gideon is an unfree person who is subject to violence and exploited for the financial gain of her masters, but it means something to her that she is not, in some economic or legal sense, a slave. So what is an indentured servant?

Gideon's status is referred to using several other terms over the course of GTN, primarily by Silas Octakiseron. While Silas is not an unbiased commentator, it's interesting that his objection to Gideon is not just because she's Ninth, but because she has usurped her social position:

“Thrall,” said Silas. “Serf. Servant... Villein,” continued the necromancer of the house of the Eighth, warming to his thesaurus. Colum was staring at Gideon, almost cross-eyed with disbelief. “Foundling. I am not insulting you, I am naming you for what you are. The replacement for Ortus Nigenad, himself a poor representative of a foetid House of betrayers and mystics.”

We don't know the exact connotations of these words in House. But a "serf" historically was a sort of feudal peasant tied to the land of a manor. Unlike a slave, a serf usually couldn't be bought or sold as an individual, but could be transferred wholesale with the land. Generically speaking, serfdom involves a tie to the land, an obligation to generate income/goods for the feudal lord of the land through labour and/or rents, and a lack of freedom of movement. It could be from birth or a voluntary indenture.

The contextual information that we get about Gideon's status backs up this very feudal image:

Gideon is, as Crux repeatedly reminds her, in some way the property of the Ninth. She wears a security cuff, and her attempt to run away is described as theft and misuse of House goods. In a typically House way, it is not just that she owes them her labour - she owes them her body once she dies. (What's interesting is that this part isn't specifically tied to her status as an indentured servant, but it fundamentally colours how it is understood in world.)

"You talk so loudly for chattle, Nav... You chatter so much for a debt. I hate you, and yet you are my wares and inventory."

Crux is Harrow's seneschal. And it would seem that at least on the Ninth, this role is very much the same as its medieval feudal equivalent: the official in charge of the management of the estate's goods and labourers.

Gideon is a legitimate subject of violence in House law: Harrow talks about how it would be "master's sin" if she "employed unwarranted violence" against her. Which means that some degree of violent punishment of indentured servants is legally permissable.

She is meant to be a financially useful asset: regulations exist governing indentured people joining the military, where they can generate revenue for their House. However, Harrow warns Gideon that "the Cohort won’t enlist an unreleased serf" - because the movement of a serf is at the discretion of her Lady, not something over which she has free choice.

The description of how Gideon came to be of the Ninth is particularly interesting in shedding some light on the institution of indenture in the Houses:

The Ninth had historically filled its halls with penitents from other houses, mystics and pilgrims who found the call of this dreary order more attractive than their own birthrights. In the antiquated rules of those supplicants who moved between the eight great households, she was taken as a very small bondswoman, not of the Ninth but beholden to it: What greater debt could be accrued than that of being brought up?

Medieval serfs too had no freedom of movement; they required a license from their lord to spend extended time away from the manor.

It's easy to forget, when the Houses themselves likely range in scale from the size of Los Angeles to Aotearoa New Zealand, that legally they seem to understand themselves to constitute feudal households. Those born in each House are part of - or in some cases it would seem, property of - the House. We see discussion in the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers of the heirs of cavalier lines being traded between Houses for political capital. Necromancers, meanwhile, are apparently such a political or reproductive asset that they are usually not allowed to marry outside their House. Obviously, these are examples of people at the top of House society, whose movement brings with it political power, or financial assets, or reproductive capacity. Where does that leave a more ordinary person who lacks those desirable assets? It would seem that they can be their own asset, granted access to another House on a debtor's bond - it's not clear in the House context whether this is typically an exchange of people already debt bonded to their House, free people entering into such bondage to secure a right of passage to another House, a combination, or something else entirely.

But it speaks to a much more ancient understanding of how people are tied to lands and lords, alongside the Houses' very different attitude to the value of human lives:

“You’re no slave, but you’ll serve the House of the Ninth until the day you die and then thereafter"

One could infer, since we've encountered nobles and serfs, that the Houses have something akin to a three-tier system like many historical European feudal systems, with nobles, freedmen, and serfs.

The medieval European feudal system was primarily a function of the management of land - serfs and freedmen's statuses were a result of their relationship to obligations to the land - requirements of work, or rents to their lord, who ultimately controlled and profited from that land. This is where the tricky difference between serfdom and slavery tends to arise.

But the Houses are not a European medieval feudal kingdom. They are not, presumably, a primarily agrarian economy. So what use might such bondspeople be? What does that society look like, outside of its highest nobles investigating each others' murders and its strangely incestuous demigods?

There must be some agriculture and industry. Given the trying conditions of living in inhospitable space environments, that there might be some class of labourers fundamentally tied to their Houses, perhaps initially stemming from the order or situation of their ancestors' resurrection, isn't impossible to imagine (after all, ruling families and cavalier lines also trace their status from the Resurrection). From the information about the rules governing movement between Houses, perhaps there are also people living in dire conditions on remote moons willing to sell their freedom for a chance at slightly better conditions, or a new start in a different House. Most Houses do not have the necromantic capacity to create skeleton constructs on a scale to manage most of their labour - in The Mysterious Study of Dr Sex, it's clear that the Sixth has a finite supply of skeleton constructs that they would require Ninth input to overhaul. We have to assume most labour on most Houses in human, and some portion of it at least in some way unfree.

But the Houses are a spacefaring society with a large, centralised military and an economically complex empire. It does not function entirely like a medieval kingdom, however much it may sometimes look like one. Much of its imperial structure seems to be on a much more 19th or 20th century model.

And the Cohort is one area where we can see some non-medieval, but awful implications to the Houses' practice of serfdom. Consider the commission that Harrow offers Gideon:

It purchased Gideon Nav’s commission to second lieutenant, not privy to resale, but relinquishing capital if she honourably retired. It would grant her full officer training. The usual huge percentage of prizes and territory would be tithed to her House if they were won, but her inflated Ninth serfdom would be paid for in five years on good conditions, rather than thirty.

Gideon is not being promised as canon fodder - this is a promise of officer training. And yet, Gideon is a serf - and that officer training would be an investment in financial returns from her involvement in the bloody machinery of empire.

How many people in the Cohort are not free? Are serfs released from their usual obligations in the House to which they are debt bonded to instead generate income for their House on the battlefield or die trying? What proportion of the Cohort are functionality enslaved children, sold a dream of glory by smutty comics and released by their Houses because their eventual deaths will be more profitable to their Houses than their labouring lives?

And fundamentally, if the Houses are in some way substantially reproducing aspects of medieval feudalism, there's only one person who can be responsible for that...

[bugcouncil]

hunger is just another form of devotion

[lucyvelvett001]

Do you want to date me??

[yujeong]

Alright, that's enough. I need everyone to be normal about Tonkla right the fuck now.

The takes I've seen about that man have made me lose my mind, to the point where I'm wondering if I've been watching the same show as everyone else. From him spreading diseases to his partners to him faking his grief and doing everything he does for attention, I've been quite perplexed while exploring the show's tags on here and on Twitter to say the least.

Guys. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Tonkla is NOT a difficult character to understand. Korn is arguably more of an inscrutable character than him.

Tonkla has been grieving since we first met him; at first his relationship with Korn that's changed to the point of no return and later his brother who got murdered.

That's it. I don't know why we're demonizing a man who 1) likes having sex and 2) is using sex to get the affection - affection, not attention - he seeks from the man whom he loves and from the man who loves him but Tonkla doesn't.

(I know why and I'll rant in the tags about it 🙂)

And while we're on the subject, I need everyone to be normal about Fuaiz, too, because the takes about his taking this role are even worse. People calling what BOC did by casting him grooming, calling the fans groomers and pedophiles, and so on and so forth.

Are you serious? Are you for real?

Fuaiz played White in DFF who was crying and being in distress 90% of the time, a show which included a scene where he pretended to get stabbed and where he got shaken by Jjay who was screaming to his face. I watched the BTS clip of that - the kid needed a moment to calm down from that experience.

Do you care about that in the same way or is it only a problem when he's pretending to get fucked on screen in a secluded, safe environment with a fucking Intimacy Director involved?

I can totally understand feeling uncomfortable about his age or about the age gap between him and Bas. I'm not judging anyone for that. But there's a difference between feeling discomfort and turning that discomfort into a morality issue. Please stop doing that.

[wouldgaysexfixthem]

would gay sex fix them?

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price and Joyce Jameson

The Comedy of Terrors (1963) dir. Jacques Tourneur