#the beast in the jungle

[criticalbeauregard]

so much of laudna’s journey with delilah has reminded me of dani at the end of bly manor but probably never more than her just now saying “she’s gonna take me” exactly like dani during the “the beast in the jungle” monologue

[methition]

[boxcarwild]

The Beast (French: La Bête) is a 2023 science fiction romantic drama film directed and written by Bertrand Bonello from a story he co-wrote with Guillaume Bréaud and Benjamin Charbit. It is loosely based on Henry James's 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle. It stars Léa Seydoux and George MacKay, with Guslagie Malanda and Dasha Nekrasova in supporting roles.

[sesiondemadrugada]

The Beast in the Jungle (Patrick Chiha, 2023).

[uwmspeccoll]

Wood Engraving Wednesday

BLAIR HUGHES-STANTON

English wood engraver Blair Hughes-Stanton (1902–1981) produced 16 wood engravings for an edition of The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James (1843-1916), designed, printed, and bound in 1963 by Lewis and Dorothy Allen in an edition of 130 copies at their Allen Press in Kentfield, California. After a long career of wood engraving, painting, and fine-press publishing, especially as co-director with his wife and fellow engraver Gertrude Hermes of the Gregynog Press, Hughes-Stanton began to work with the Allens in 1955, producing five books for them from 1956 to 1973. The color wood engravings for this book were also overprinted with linocut patterns. In their 1985 The Allen Press Bibliography, the Allens write:

The sixteen illustrations printed directly from the wood in two colors are remarkable for their unique style and their subtle allegorical interpretation of the emotional problems confronting the main characters. This we believe is a perceptive interpretation of a text by an artist.

Our copy is another donation from the estate of our late friend, Dennis Bayuzick.

View more engravings by Blair Hughes-Stanton.

View other books from the collection of Dennis Bayuzick.

View��more posts with wood engravings!

[waltz-of-words]

“It wouldn’t have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything. ”

― Henry James, The Beast in the Jungle

[rrrauschen]

Patric Chiha, {2023} La bête dans la jungle (The Beast in the Jungle)

[primordyaforever]

The Haunting of Bly Manor

Hello everyone! It’s me again, and I am back with my review of the second and (if the rumors are to be believed) LAST installment of The Haunting series on Netflix. I told you in my Haunting of Hill House review that I would be back with a Bly Manor review, didn’t I? I bet you thought that I forgot, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Well, I didn’t! Life just happened to get in the way…as it so badly has a…

[turnuptheoldvictrola1183]

The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) / Lake Mungo (2008)

[sloshed-cinema]

The Beast [La bête] (2023)

We are all of us dolls. The idea of past lives folding over one another, the inevitability of return has brought romance suffused with pangs of tragedy to artists across cinema from Celine Song to Darren Aronofsky, and its literary counterparts back through the generations. But for Bertrand Bonello, that concept can only arrive at a place of horror. This sci-fi period epic romance traces the lives and livelihoods of Gabrielle and Louis across multiple iterations. The film toys with the tropes of this story type, bringing the two together in seemingly spontaneous and ephemeral ways on most timelines. And yet fate can be just as capricious, tragedy brought on to close out most of their reunions and re-reunions. Because this isn’t about some sort of grand romantic inevitability, but rather about control and the propagation of automata. Dolls feature prominently in every timeline in some guise, suggesting a furthering of human capability in its simulation of itself. Porcelain dolls are being replaced by celluloid ones in Fin de siècle Paris, and yet they are inadvertently more lethal for it. An artificial voice guides Gabrielle through her phone tree options as she seeks to modify herself through plastic surgery in a nearly contemporaneous plot thread, substituting a human receptionist for efficiency. And after some unknown future apocalypse redesigns society fundamentally, artificial intelligence claims to pave the way for a better future by way of genetic cleansing of past, human errors. Kelly the doll is offered as a companion here, who yearns for company but offers no authentic camaraderie. But this isn’t a cry against society by any stretch. While technology seeks to substitute experience with artifice, people are capable of the same, as evidenced by 2010s Louis and his rabid incel rant against human closeness. If we cannot create a doll, become a creator seeking to perfect one’s own image in a flawless, pleasing neutrality to be paraded about, we must destroy. Though The Beast plays in the common well of Cloud Atlas or others, it’s this essential thesis which sets it apart, rejecting falseness even to the point of decrying cinema itself. In the open and at key points throughout, Gabrielle is alone on a massive green screen, asked to enact certain sequences of emotion, choreographed experience, which she manages to pull off. Even the idea of directorial control is reviled here. The closeups of Gabrielle herself are far more valuable.

Calamity haunts all timelines. The Parisian Flood of 1910 kills Gabrielle and Louis in one iteration, haunting imagery of drowned bodies trying to make an escape, and some apocalypse renders the outside air unbreathable and a fraction of humanity worthless in the all-too-near future. Even an earthquake can shake up the mundane reality of life in the most contemporaneous timeline. This sort of destruction is inevitable, regardless of how we catastrophize our lives.

The term ‘Lynchian’ is overused, but here Bonello clearly shows his hand at this specific brand of nostalgic surrealism. Key elements evoke the interests of that American auteur: a propensity for needle-drop moments of music which evokes decades gone by, dance clubs, and the strange. Repeatedly, Gabrielle returns to various iterations of a nightclub, which could be interpreted through the lens of a White or Black Lodge as the music cleaves to acid-etched standards of the 70s and 80s or a grungier contemporary energy. Gabrielle is rebuffed in all timelines by the same trio of women, though in the more modern iteration they seem to have a sense of loss and regret which mirrors this deflection from days gone by. Also mirroring the work of David Lynch are seemingly arbitrary images which find ripples throughout the film: a seer is consulted, be she via an internet chatroom or through a friend of a friend. Pigeons are omens of death which appear at inopportune moments. A tired, otherworldly bartender seems to exist as some figure for Gabrielle to center herself upon. All of this is not really explained, and yet somehow just exists in a coherent dream logic. But the past is in the past, there’s no going back, no matter how much we may yearn for it. Our couple dance to the song they danced to so many times in past lives, but Louis’ final revelation brings nothing but horror to Gabrielle. She cannot realize her romance. This is an iterative hell ever perfected for further dehumanization.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'AI' or 'feeling'.

Time jump.

Someone is told to close or open their eyes.

BIG DRINK

Pigeon.

Characters hold hands.

[knightotoc]

"I appear to myself to have spent my life in thinking of nothing but dreadful things."

-- The Beast in the Jungle, Henry James

[awintrymix]

The Beast in the Jungle (2023).

Directed by Patric Chiha.

[yeastymuffin]

This is why Henry James wrote The Beast in the Jungle

"He had justified his fear and achieved his fate; he had failed, with the last exactitude, of all he was to fail of; and a moan now rose to his lips as he remembered she had prayed he mightn’t know.  This horror of waking—this was knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze.  Through them, none the less, he tried to fix it and hold it; he kept it there before him so that he might feel the pain.  That at least, belated and bitter, had something of the taste of life."

James, Henry. The Beast in the Jungle (p. 35). Kindle Edition.

not people thinking they can escape heartache. avoiding it at all cost is itself a form of it

[catsofyore]

“Lady Aberconway’s cat, Antonia” 1950. Source.

[missterious-figure]

Monster Sun and Moon as kits!

[bandgie]

Hi! I ABSOLUTELY LOVED your Beast of a Man tarzan!smut. Seriously it was so engaging and you wrote him so well (HES SO HOT AGHH). He's such a hot character idk why others don't write about him, I'm starved for Tarzan fics...

Could you please make a part 2 to the smut? You have such a great/smutty idea going I would love to see you continue it!!

It would mean everything to me!

( ^◡^)

a/n: hi yes thank you so much and ofc! it's been so long since I've written smut on Tarzan so please bear with me! (fic anon is referring to here)

synopsis: You have successfully brought back the ape-man for research. Despite behaving like an animal, he's a lot more human in more ways than you originally thought.

warnings: MDNI 18+, recording during sex, oral (m!), 69ing, semi-public oral sex, cumming in mouth (m!&f!), rough throat fucking (f!rec), cum eating (m!&f!)

2.8k words

"Who the fuck is this?!"

Your colleagues screamed and ran upon seeing who, more like what, you brought back to camp. They hopped up on tables and held up papers as weapons. They eyed you both wearily, on the verge of tears as you stood just a few feet away.

"I think that's a bit extreme," you sigh. 

The ape-man was beside you, clinging onto your leg like a child would do with a mother. He, too, was very wary around these strangers. You could hear him grunting and pulling at you as if keeping you from getting too close. 

Cute yes, but this would mean it would take a lot of work to build trust in the entire group.

Slowly, the fellow researchers began to try and communicate with the man. Talking slowly and softly, just like you showed them to. All of you agreed that this being could be the missing link, the answer to the question anthropologists have tried to find for decades.

It took over a month for everyone to be comfortable around one another, but of course, another issue was raised. 

"So does he just not have a name?" Professor Porter asked. 

As of now, you all were just calling him 'the ape-man' or 'hey you' to get his attention. It never crossed your mind to give him an actual name. 

"We're not gonna name that beast," Clayton butted his way into the conversation. Clayton, as big and strong as he was, seems the most afraid of your new friend. He's hostile, rude, and arrogant. Even if the ape-man cannot understand the words thrown at him, he can feel them.

The best thing to do in these situations was to ignore Clayton, he just loves the sound of his own voice. 

"No," you turn your attention back to the professor. "Not that I know of at least. Should we come up with one?"

"Oh great," there's heavy sarcasm laced in Clayton's voice. "Here you are naming a dog you're not even gonna keep."

"With no due respect Clayton, please shut the fuck up," Terk, the youngest of you, speaks. Terk is small for his age, but he has built. A hairy man who's lively, talkative, and one of the natives that live here. He and the ape-man get along well, a little too well sometimes.

Clayton flips Terk the bird.

"A name for him would be nice, yes." The professor looks as though he's sweating from the tense atmosphere. "Do come up with one dear, I think the missing link would rather you do it."

It's no secret that the ape-man prefers you over the other researchers. He's constantly at your hip, following you like you have an invisible leash on him. Your colleagues, however, don't know how close you two actually are. 

The conversation stays in your head for the rest of the day. A name. A name. Something everyone has yet is unbelievably difficult to come up with. Hundreds of possibilities run through your mind as you carry out your daily tasks. Even the ape-man, who's used to you ruffling his hair, grows confused about your behavior.

Nightfall comes with everyone in their tents and you still haven't come up with a name. 

With a groan, you turn on your side to see the very person who's making you struggle already looking at you. His eyes are dark, but the candle in your tent lights up his features just enough. You reach out and brush a lock of hair out of his face, watching how he moves to try and get you to touch his skin.

You settle with resting the palm of your hand on his cheek, rubbing your thumb over it. 

"A name," you tsk. You narrow your eyes and let your gaze travel over his body. He needs to look like his name, that's a must. "Hey, do you know what a name is?"

He doesn't answer. 

"Something to call you. That's a name. Do you have one?"

He stares at you.

Well, this is going to be harder than you thought. 

Pursing your lips, you say the first name that comes to mind, "Edward?"

He reacts to that. His calm expression turns into a scowl, bushy eyebrows coming together. You quietly laugh and shake your head, "Not that one okay."

"Tony?"

He frowns.

"Taren?"

He pouts.

"Okay, okay. I think I got it...Garrett."

The ape-man groans, mimicking the behavior he's seen you do hundreds of times. It shocks you to see him act so human, so you. It's equally adorable as it is terrifying. 

He's gotten closer to you, a breath away. The proximity used to freak you out, but you've learned it’s how he shows his affection. His trust. 

The ape-man is waiting for you to say a word he likes, a sound that comes off your tongue magically. Judging from your facial expression and earlier absent behavior, this is an important task for you.

You want the name to be strong, versatile, and not easily replaceable. The being you've found is one-of-a-kind, it's only fair his name is as well. You play with a few letters in your head, bouncing them in your mind until you think of one that suits him.

"What about Tarzan then? Do you like that one?"

His pupils dilate, watching your beautiful lips pronounce the word. His word. 

"Yes."

You gasp, sitting up abruptly. Your sudden movements make him panic as he sits up with you. He scans the tent to find an intruder while you sit there stunned. 

He spoke. The ape-man no! Tarzan just spoke to you. He understood language and used it, even if it was just a mere word. A one-syllable answer that has shaken you to your core. 

"Oh my god. You just, Tarzan you just spoke. Holy shit, say it again. I need to capture this on video." You ruffle through your bag looking for your camera. 

Tarzan stops searching the tent and looks back at you looking as confused as ever. Like he didn't just display human speech in a mere month.

Quickly, you pull out the camera and hit record, aiming the lens at Tarzan's hard, yet beautiful features. 

"Repeat what you just said," you look at him through the monitor. Instead of complying, Tarzan stares blankly into the lens. "Do you like the name Tarzan?" You press.

No answer, his eyes flick from the red light to your eyes. 

"Come on! Just tell me whether or not you like the name." You're starting to grow impatient. At this point, you're convinced he's just being an ass.

Finally, he adjusts his seating position. Tarzan glances down at his crotch then back up to you, then back to his crotch. You follow his gaze, trying to understand what he's trying to say. Then it clicks. 

Compensation. If you want him to do you a favor, you have to do him one as well. 

"Are you being serious?" You sigh at him. Tarzan gives a faint nod to you. Even if he can't do so, you swear you see him smirk. Asshole. Setting the camera down, you angle it towards the two of you. Might as well have fun with it.

You crawl your way towards him, parting his thighs slightly before giving him a playful glare, "You're such a man sometimes."

Unlike before, Tarzan wears cargo shorts rather than a mere piece of clothes from last time. Professor Porter made it clear that if he was to hang amongst you all, clothes were necessary. 

They suited him nicely, even now. The way the material hugs his toned thighs, how his cock bulges through the shorts even when he isn’t hard. You couldn't help but run your hands along his muscular legs, finding his crotch.

He groaned as you palmed him, straining to not thrust his hips up. Tarzan learned to be patient with you, especially in the presence of others. Most animals didn't care whether they mated alone or in their pack. Even if Tarzan was raised by those animals, the thought of others hearing the sounds you make for him is repulsive. 

Instead, he has to settle for brushing your hair from your face as you undo his buttons. Delicate fingers unzipping the seam until his half-hard cock sprouts in your face. 

It doesn't matter how many times you've seen his dick, it makes your pussy quiver every time. All you can think about is how perfectly it stretches you, how the tip slides against your cunt deliciously. Your mouth salivates at the memory, and you let your spit drool off your tongue to land on his cock.

Tarzan loves the sigh. A pink tongue just hovering over his length. He also remembers the feeling of your hot mouth on him. The way your lips slowly come closer to the crown of his head, how your breath wafts over him. It feels euphoric when you finally make contact with him, mouth enclosing his flushed head.

It's so warm in your mouth, smooth as you lightly suck on him. The hand on your head slightly grips your hair, a sign that he likes the slow pace you've set. You hum around his cock, taking him a little deeper as you widen your jaw.

One of your hands makes way to grip the base, pulling the skin upwards in a stroking motion. 

This makes his hips jerk, gagging you for just a split second. Your wide eyes look up at him, small tears peeking at the corners. Tarzan gives an apologetic look, but the sight of your teary eyes and pretty lips around his cock makes him fuck up toward you again.

You pull away from him, earning a whine as Tarzan throws his head back dramatically. 

Maybe he thinks you're going to stop as punishment, but it's quite the opposite. Your cunt is sopping from tasting him, even if it was for a brief moment. Even if you have a task at hand, and your camera is still recording for 'research,' you have your own needs to take care of. 

Tarzan is none the wiser as you put a hand on his bare chest and lay him down. He eyes you curiously but lets you push him all the way down before hopping on top. His eyes widen as he's faced with your clothed cunt. Underwear the same color as your tongue that holds the strongest smell of you.

He doesn't need any directions as he dives his nose into you. Tarzan is obsessed with your natural smell. His nose immediately grows damp from your wetness, his tongue poking out to lick the juices that leak out.

Softly moaning, you take a hold of his cock once more. You pump it a few times before taking it into your mouth. It's surprising to see that he's not humping in your mouth like normal, but he's so distracted with your pussy that he can't seem to bother noticing his own pleasure.

It's hard to focus on his hard length as his teeth tear off your panties. You gasp when you hear the fabric split, but it turns into a whine when his tongue finally makes contact with your bare cunt. 

Tarzan has to grip your hips to keep you still. As much as he would love for you to grind on his face, he needs to have his meal first. His tongue runs over your folds, finding that little bud you love so much to be touched. 

He sucks on it and pulls, stretching your clit. Your legs shake and you have to pull away from his cock to catch your breath. Lazy hands stroke his hard-on as you look back. You clench at the sight of his unruly hair peeking above your ass, the sounds his mouth makes as he laps at you.

Turning back to your literal task at hand, you find the energy to take his cock once more. You unhinge your jaw and exhale, taking Tarzan deeper and deeper until your eyes roll back. You hollow your cheeks and suck, moving your head back up until just the tip remains in your mouth, and go all the way back down.

Now Tarzan can feel the bliss of your mouth on him. He moans into your pussy and slightly jerks his hips up, making you gag around him once more. 

Feeling you work so hard makes him want to reciprocate. He shakes his head left and right to try and bury himself deeper. He uses his grip to force you further onto his face. Tarzan's tongue finds the squeezing entrance that he's breached so many times. He digs his tongue into you, finally getting a taste of you from the source. 

He's guiding your hips so you could drag your pussy against him how you like. Tarzan can feel your hips trying to pull away from him as the feeling of his tongue has gotten too much. And it has.

You're trying to distract yourself by deepthroating him, but it's no use. All you can feel is his experienced mouth, how he remembers every detail he knows you like. You can feel your orgasm approaching, and how it builds in your stomach rapidly. 

Tarzan feels your legs shake. Your thighs trembling and giving out, full lower body weight on his face. He can taste how the wetness has changed, thicker and tart. Tarzan knows this taste like the back of his hand. You're going to cum, give him that white cream he loves licking out of you.

You've completely stopped paying attention to his dick. A part of you should feel bad for neglecting him, but you can't seem to care as Tarzan's tongue fucks you. Instead, you find yourself humping his face, his mouth following as you approach your high.

You squeal as you come, clamping a hand over your mouth as you finish. Warm gushes out of you, body quivering as the eager man under you happily drinks it all. Tarzan gulps and slurps until he's beginning dripping from the corners of his mouth. 

He takes and takes until you're the one having to tell him no more, that you can't handle another orgasm. 

Tarzan hears the desperation in your voice, the way you plead. It takes strength for him to pull away from your pussy, a soft growl emitting from his chest. 

Then his thighs wrap around your head, securing you in front of his cock. You have no time to question him as you involuntarily take his cock into your mouth.

There's so much pre-cum dripping from the slit that all you can taste is its saltiness. He's throbbing, fucking his hips into your mouth as he holds you still with his legs. 

All you can do is take it. Lips wrapping around his girth as he desperately slides his dick in and out. You gag and silently plead for Tarzan to be gentler, but he's having none of it. Your hands warp around his thighs to steady yourself, your head bobbing uncontrollably to match his movements.

Tarzan twitches in your mouth once, stilling his hips deep into your throat. Tears immediately prick your eyes and fall down your face, and you swear your vision goes black for a fraction of a second before he pulls out. You get the chance to gasp for air as he lines up his cock to your lips again and shoves it back in.

You think you might pass out. You're at the mercy of Tarzan, and he's still unable to see how much stronger he is than the average man. Your mouth is nothing but a fleshlight to him as he makes you choke around him. It makes you feel like a toy, a warm hole for him to fuck his seed into.

And you wouldn't have it any other way.

The familiar twitch in his cock occurs again. Once, twice, then three times before he unloads in your mouth. Hot spurts of his cum find themselves in your throat, forcing you to gulp it down. 

Tarzan's hips slow, letting his cock drag against your lips before he finally pulls out. You cough and pant as his orgasm drips from your tongue. 

His thighs release you and you promptly plop down on them. You feel his hands rub soothingly over the curve of your ass, up and down your thighs. And an extra apology, Tarzan presses a kiss to your throbbing pussy. You chuckle and kiss his thigh back before sitting up, hoping off his face. 

You have to crawl to grab your camera, breathing a sigh of relief to see the red light still shining. You aim the lens at his face as he too sits up. You can see the arousal on his face from eating you out, his swollen lips, and messy hair.

"So," you start. "Tell me, Tarzan, did you like that?"

Tarzan's lips quirk into what you think is a smile before he looks at you directly through the camera. 

"Yes."

a/n: holy fuck I dont think y'all know how hard this was. I kinda went all out for the first one so the second one was hard as hell to match lmaooo. I physically and mentally can't do a third installment. this is the final one sowwy also I added some characters from the film! hopefully you caught that, I made Terk human, Tarzan needed a friend even if it's a fanfic