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this-world-of-beautiful-monsters · 3 years ago

Text

repeating / that this loud silence is only where you live

Title taken from the poem Late Summer after a Panic Attack by Ada Limón.

Based on this amazing art by @leonsi (also known as leones)

Prompt: Never Enough

TMNT 2012.

(warnings for past panic attacks, mental health issues, breakdowns, trauma, crying, internalized ableism)

You can find the whole collection on AO3 here.

It's three in the morning, and a teapot’s screaming in the kitchen.

Donnie leans against the doorway, cup of coffee in hand, quietly regarding the brother standing over the teapot. Leo's mask is pulled around his face, exposing the bags under his eyes. His head is bowed over the coffee, gaze distant in a way that suggests bad dreams or little sleep or some combination thereof.

Donnie would know. He sees that combination in the mirror more times than he'd like to count.

"Hey," he says easily, not looking too long at his brother as he goes to sit at the table.

"Hey, yourself," Leo says after a beat, not looking at him.

There's a bruise on his brother's cheek, Donnie notices from where he'd banged his head against the floor after last night's...episode. The panic attack, he reminds himself firmly; good scientists don't prevaricate.

(the shaking, the crying, the terror in his brother's eyes, the way that Oroku Saki was dead twice over and haunted them still, that he loomed over Leo's shoulder and had settled in the folds of his brain and there was no amount of talking that would ever, ever get him out)

A panic attack. Another panic attack, and Donnie doesn't like thinking about how many times he or one of the others has had to talk Leo through this, had to teach him how to breathe, to hold him until the shaking in his limbs stopped. How many times this has happened, and they didn't even know, because Leo is the kind of bastard who would struggle through one by himself.

Leo had left, the way he sometimes does, had pulled away and hadn't been able to face any of them. And none of them had known what to do--it wasn't like they could force him to talk to them, could they --so they'd avoided talking about it the way they...just did, these days.

They'd watched him slink off to his room, and they'd listened to him sob through the door, and they hadn't known what to say when he shouted, "Go away." Because what can they say that doesn't feel rehashed, a stupid platitude that was lame before any of them even tried it? It gets better. You're strong. You are not alone. Such tired bullshit.

Because it's not just panic attacks, was it? It's jumping at sudden bangs or shouts, it's abruptly needing to have a clear line of vision through the room, it's the thing with snow and the thing with helmets and the thing with fucking Wolverine, on the absolute worst days. It's the story that they've heard rehashed in all its ugly glory, but one that keeps haunting them.

And Leo’s not the only one struggling, of course. It's Raph refusing to eat the worms he happily scarfed down as a child, no matter how hungry they get. It's Mikey not wanting to go swimming anymore. It's Donnie having to drag himself out of the lab and cling on to someone at random moments, desperate for the reminder that his skin is still his, it's still skin.

(Sometimes Donnie thinks they're suffocating down here, the four of them. Sometimes he thinks they're dying, or that they're dead and there's a reason that humans say Hell is below. Sometimes he thinks a lot of stupid things that he never would if he was fully rested and fully present and fully unable to remember the time the woman he loved ripped him to atoms)

But for all that, he knows that he can't leave, not right now. Because Leo needs him, or Donnie thinks he does, and in this moment, at least, he thinks he's strong enough to at least try and help.

So, he doesn't move as Leo turns with a cup of tea in hand and stares at him. From this angle, it's easier to see the faint redness on his brother's cheeks, the fact that he's been crying, the glisten that suggests he might start again soon.

Donnie wonders if he's going to run, but instead Leo sighs, with something approaching resignation, and plops down across from him. They regard each other in silence for what feels like a heartbeat and forever.

"It's not getting better," Leo says, without preamble. They both know what he's talking about.

"Technically, it is," Donnie says lamely. "According to my statistics, your attacks per year have decreased in--"

"But it's not stopping," Leo says, low and desperate. "I'm still jumpy and paranoid and I can't go out during a snowstorm, and I forget where I am again and again, and I can’t," He sucks in a breath, rubs at his eyes. "It's been years, Donnie!"

"You've dealt with a lot shit since then," Donnie points out, desperate not to completely slip into the comfortable embrace of Doctor Mode, but he's never found a better way to cope with the endless clusterfuck of their lives. "We all have--"

"You know what I mean," Leo snarls. "I, I should be better, shouldn't I?" His breath catches, hitches, and he growls as if angry at himself. "I need to be better."

Donnie bites his lip. "You've never lost it in a battle--"

"Yet." Leo tries to shake a sip of tea, but his hands are shaking, and he nearly drops the cup. "I thought he was in my room, you know. That's why I came out here. Because I can't, can't, can't, can't make myself remember that I'm safe, it's like my body's forgotten how, it's like..." He shakes his head, rubs his eyes more angrily this time.

"Leo--"

"'Leo,' what?" His brother sits up to glare at him, and Donnie freezes at the strange kind of desperate fire in those eyes, terrifying and terrified. "What can you do? What can any of us do that hasn't been done to fucking death and won't make the problem fucking worse?"

Donnie opens his mouth, trying to think of something to say, but Leo cuts him off.

"I meditate," he whispers. "I train. I fight." The words are rising now, building to a scream. "I go on stupid fucking vision quests and pick imaginary fights with all the goddamn final bosses I can think of and then it starts all over again. I spill my soul about what happened and it's barely to hold back the fucking tide. I, I kill him, I taste his fucking blood in my mouth, and it doesn't stop, Donnie! It's not enough, it's never enough, when is it going to be ENOUGH!"

They stare at each other for a second, frozen. And Donnie--Donnie should do something, should get up and give his brother a hug, find the words to make it all better, but he can't move, he's scared, and his heart is crying out and he's hearing Leo say too many things that feel too familiar.

He can see tears trickling down his brother's cheeks, now, glinting in the warm kitchen light. Leo tears his gaze away from Donnie's and stares at his own trembling hands.

"I hate it," he says, voice trembling. "I hate this. I am so sick of being so scared all the time." He draws in a rattling breath. "I just want it to end. Why--why can't it just end?"

And then he's sobbing, full-on sobbing, rocking back and forth in his chair as the tea cools and the world spins on and nothing happens to give them what they need. But the sound of his brother weeping is still enough to drive Donnie around his seat, sending him tottering around the table to throw his arms around Leo's shoulders.

They slide to the floor together in a messy tangle of limbs, Leo full-on sobbing into Donnie's chest. Donnie gives him and lets himself cry too, just a little, silent tears dripping onto Leo's head.

"I'm s-sorry," Leo rasps, shaking so hard Donnie worries he'll break something. "You, you shouldn't have to--"

"Don't," Donnie whispers, squeezing his brother as hard as he can to keep from crumbling. "No more apologies. Please." He doesn't think he can take any more of those.

"Just cry, Leo." He rubs a gentle hand down his brother's trembling shell. "Just let it out." And for once, Leo doesn't hesitate before doing just that.

Donnie holds Leo as his brother cries, and cries, and cries, sobs echoing around the kitchen. It's all he can do. And it's not enough to fix everything, but maybe, just maybe, it can get them both through the night.

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forestryfae · 3 years ago

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If you ate every alien ben could turn into, what would be the top 5 and bottom 5 tastiest do you think (any form of cooking or preparing the aliens is allowed)

i dont know if ths is a fetish question or genuine actual question. but im answering anyway because thats a really good question Ripjaws. tastes like cod but a little to the left. no pizza left trout. nothing to brag about but its good. 4/10 im not a big fan of trout XLR8. that is one VERY skinny boi. the muscles are super hard and chewy and your jaws WILL hurt. a steak knife has trouble cutting through a steak. you can boil him but it pretty much just falls apart like an overboiled potato. great for stews, barely any meat tho. 6/10 Rath. 0/10. good steaks, perfect for BBQ, tastes a little bit like spicy lamb or lamb taco. deducting every point at the thought of eating a kitty though Atomic X. this is a tin can filled with radioactive energy. if you eat him your dna unravels INSTANTLY. 10/10 EXTREMELY recommended experience. use a can opener. Grey Matter. this is a frog. we are not french here. 0/10 Bullfrag. contrary to popular beliefs this is not a frog, its a fursona, so hes safe to eat. naturally salty, meat has the consistency of boiled chicken, only use pepper and onions. any onion goes. great for onion soup. 1/10 i dont like onions Liam. hes not one of bens aliens but im putting him on here eitherway. tastes like chicken 10/10. Upgrade. tastes like a spoon actually. wouldnt recommend it. 10/10 the taste is bearable and consistent and you know exactly what to get and its kind of like eating a really thick yoghurt or molten aliminum but weirder. dont eat if you have fillings or holes in your teeth. you know when you get aliminiumin from a candy wrapper inside a filling? dont eat him. uness you have iron deficiencies. Heatblast. ow. no. dont. inedible. pain. third degree burns in your mouth and throat instantly and you die. tastes like charcoal and burnt overcooked sausages anyways so youre not missing out on anything. consistency of charcoal. youre better off using him as a campfire. 0/10 Ditto. 12/10 flesh tastes like a marshmellow, eyeballs and green dots taste like blue raspberry and green energy drinks. the black parts of his body tastes like licorice. you can eat him raw but the moral weight on your shoulders and regret will make you wish you hadnt. you can p much bake, cook, bbq, and boil him but only the white parts. the green parts are great for pie and tart fillings. the black parts have to be eaten raw tho because boiled licorice is gross and disgusting. you CAN make jerky form the black parts and put them in vodka to get alien licorice vodka. if you dehydrate the bones you get something that tastes and feels like crackers and is great for your calcium intake. the whiskers are like pocky sticks with white chocolate :3 Kevin. not one of bens aliens but hes here anyways. dont eat kevin. Shocksquatch. ideally you make a rug and throw the rest away to the worms. tastes like monkey breath. not worth it. 0/10 Goop. tastes like a mix between kiwi and assorted fruits jelly but also tastes kind of like snot and has a slimy consistency that makes it hard to swallow, like an eel. theres this one type of viscous liquid that is essentially self-pouring that i cant remember the name of, but if you pour it from one bucket into another it just keeps pouring itself on its own, even after you tilt the bucket back up. thats the slime im talking about. so like hes tasty if youre 5 years old, but you WILL choke if you try to eat goop. you may eat him. ONCE. 9/10, deducting a point for the very distinctive snot flavour Waybig. you cant eat waybig. im sorry but hes too big. Rook. not one of bens aliens but hes on here anyway. mostly muscle, not a lot of meat on the body tho. kind of like an inner filet but all over. kind of tastes like hog and beef. would be served at fancy resturants. but dont eat him please hes very polite Ghostfreak. you eat air? you want eat fucking air????? AIR??? helium. you could inhale him. perfect for vaping. NRG. same concept as Atomic X but hes spicier. you ever eat chili flakes? tastes like chili flakes and a wrench. you will die. Diamondhead. tastes like a rock. 10/10 Gwen or

any other anodite. not bens alien but dont eat her. same concept as unraveling your dna due to radioactivity except your chakras are unraveled instead. Four Arms. LOTS of meat here, very tasty, tastes like a very juicy hamburger in the forme of a steak. fucking delicious. if you can figure out how to defeat him hes truly worth the effort. Top 5 would def be Ditto, Rook, Diamondhead, Ripjaws, and Upgrade Bottom 5 would be Goop, Upchuck, Ghostfreak, Wildmutt, and Rath

#ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #omniverse

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fakeloveaskblog · 2 years ago

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Hi, me again. This is a story progressing ask so you can say what happens when Janus and Remus arrive at Remy’s. If someone else put through an ask for it you can use that, this is just so that you can say what happens next if no one else had an ask for this.

Glow Eyes

Tw: talk about abuse, talk about sex but like not at all in a smutty way

The door flung open nearly right into Remy's face. They leant back and looked up to meet Remus' worried look. His jacket had clearly been thrown on, his shoes weren't matching and his hair stood up like a bird’s nest. Janus was out of breathe as he closed the door behind them.

"Remy" Was all Remus gasped out before collapsing on his knees right in front of them. He hugged them like it was the end of the world.

They clambered their arms around him and dug their face into the crook of his neck "Remus"

Janus sat down next to them and both of them quickly reached out to pull him into the hug. He let his hands comfortably stay around Remy's waist as he pressed a kiss to their hair.

He quietly scanned Remy's face for any hints of what had happened. The dark bags under their eyes, the red tear streaks down their cheeks, their mat hair that had nearly grown to their shoulders. And the bruises. He tried to steer his eyes away from the spots of darkly nauseating purples and greens, and yet he couldn't stop staring at them.

"Are you okay?" Janus wanted to hit themself immediately after saying it. What a stupid question. Of course Remy wasnt-

Remy quickly nodded in response. They held onto Remus like a lifeline "I'm all good girl" Their voice was shaky.

"Do you know when Virgil will be back? Is he away at work or?"

"Staying at his uh parent's place. It's like an- 2 hours away? I think? I dunno girl I'm tots stupid sorry"

"You're not stupid!!! AND How can you be okay?!" Remus exclaimed right into their face "You haven't seen your bestie boy kraken bitch in months!!! I've missed you!!! I've got so much to tell you!!! OH!! If Virgin is away we can stay up all night and eat pumpkin meat and worm candy and cuddle and watch movies!! And then I can have a super duper long conversation with your body so it stops being a total dickass and stop making you unable to leave the apartment ‘cause of pain!!”

They let out a weak chuckle "That sounds great girl. Really let at it. It's what the bitch bod deserves!"

"Now when Virgil is...away" Janus balanced the words on their tongue, unsure of how to continue "Would you like to come over to one of our places? Getting some change of scenery would be good-" It felt so stupid to cloud this all in fancy words. They looked directly into their' loves eyes and bluntly asked "Remy do you want to leave?"

An immediate look of utter terror went across their face mixed in with just the smallest bit of hope glimmering in their eyes. Their dried out lips parsed to speak but only a hasty breathe came out.

It followed up with this sick, nearly lucid, expression. Only worsened by their sunken in cheeks and red eyes.

Janus hesitated and forced a nod “It’s okay darling. We can both stay here for the rest of the day, Right Rem?”

Remus quickly nodded along “Oh yeah!! I got all the time in the world for my beloved beanpole!”

Remy’s expression softened and the terror drained away “That sounds great girlies”

The two of them helped Remy up on their unsteady feet. They leant against their friends as they dragged them over to the couch. They kept mumbling out apologies for being so slow and in return the other two kept loudly reassuring how okay going slow was.

“Let’s get us some water okay” Janus said as the Rems slumped down onto the couch “Water is good-”

“Water has like 3 atoms. At Least!” Remus chimed in.

“Right. True. very true. Facts even”

It was probably a bit naive to think but Janus still hoped that a day’s rest and loads of support from the both of them would shake Remy out of the mindset Virgil had trapped them in just for long enough so they could be convinced to leave.

For now Janus went out into the kitchen and filled three glasses with water. They leant down near a corner and whispered.

“Any watcher nearby? I could use a package of their meds”

It took a few seconds before a package of strong painkillers was spit out into their hand. Some weird substance had gotten stuck on the edge of the package. They were unsure if it was general void goo or snail slime, either way they shook it off.

“Thank you”

When Janus got back to the living room Remus had completed his transformation into an octopus by throwing his arms around Remy as hard as he could and aggressively rubbing the the sides of their faces together. They seemed to enjoy it.

“Should I even ask what you’re doing” Janus asked dryly while sitting down next to them.

“I’m marking Beanie as my territory!! OH! In the real world animals mark their territory by peeing. Beanie do you want me to pee on you” Remus hopefully joked.

“Omgushh girrrlll you finally got my signals like yeeeah totallly would love to”

“I should have just left you two to dehydrate to death” Janus rolled their eyes while handing out the glasses.

“Thanks Jannie!” “Thank you SnakeyBakey!”

The Rems clinked their glasses together. Remus poked his fingers into the water and splashed it onto the other Rem right when they drank. They let out a loud fake gasp and threw a pillow onto his head.

Janus moved their beanie over their eyes and melted into the couch. With their eyes closed they sat there for a long time, simply listening to the Rems squabbling, chatting and gossiping. They let themself daydream that the three of them were sitting in some other apartment, and everything was at peace.

“I thought being on meds could help with how easy you get bruised” Remus suddenly said. He had attempted to lick the bruise near their temple to make it heal faster.

“That’s not how fibro works sweetie”

“Just checking here, but you are still taking your meds” Janus lifted the beanie just enough to look at them “Right? I can’t recall the pain ever being so bad it limited your ability to walk this much”

Remy got this stale grimace on their face, like they had tried to smile but failed halfway through.

Jan reached out and placed their hand on top of Remy’s “It’s okay. Medicine is expensive. It is very understandable if you haven’t been able to get them regularly”

“Yeah!! Especially while alone!” Remus chimed in.

“Exactly. So it is good that I requested some of your medicine from the watchers”

He took out the meds from his pocket. Before he even had a chance at opening it Remy had reached around his wrist to stop him. They met his eyes.

“Don’t”

“Is anything..wrong?” He asked.

“I- I just-I don’t like really need meds right now. I’m managing fine”

Remus held them a little closer “I dunno Beanie. I think you would be doing equally as fine if someone chainsawed off your toes”

Janus squeezed their hand ever so carefully “If...If it’s anything with Virgil...He’s not here right now. There is literally no possible way for him to know if you have taken medication or not. He will never know”

Remy’s breathing began to fasten. They shook their head. “I- I really don’t need- I can’t-”

“It’s okay. All the meds will do is relieve the pain. There won’t be any signs of you taking it”

“I DON’T NEED IT!” Remy yelled.

Their limbs twitched without them controlling any of it. Their legs nearly kicked Janus. Remus held onto them even harder, his eyes went a bit glazed as dissociation kicked in.

“I’M FINE! I am managing through the symptoms FINE! I can manage through the pain! THAT’S WHAT I ALWAYS DO! I DON’T NEED THE FUCKING MEDS!”

A second went by. An egregiously slow second. Remy’s breathing was raged as all the anger went away. Their entire body started to shake and their voice sounded like it had been dragged raw as they quickly forced out

“I- I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean- I- I’m sorry- I’m sorry- I’m really sorry- I’m sorry-”

Janus sat aside the meds and reached out for them “Hey it’s okay. You didn’t hurt anyone. Breathe. Breathe. We can talk about the medicine later, it’s okay”

Remy gulped before nodding. They turned to Remus and sent him a big worried look “You alright? I’m sorry babe” They mumbled out.

“...mhm...Dissociated but...alright”

They trailed their hand along his arm to help ground him. It wasn’t the yelling that had affected him, it was how much it reminded Remus of his outbursts about medicine right after leaving Os. It reminded him of how he’d screamed at his sister about how the antipsychotics would only hurt him. Of how he kept fighting back against her suggestions of going to rehab until he started passing out in his own puke. Because Os had drilled it into his head that only the “medicine” that Os gave him could ever help. That he would be hurt by any sort of actual mental health help. That the only one who truly wanted the best for him was Os. That he couldn’t survive on his own with his crippled mind.

Remus leant close to his crush and ever so gracefully buried his face into their hair. The familiar Remy smell hit him. A mix of coffee beans, cigarette smoke, a stinch of newly rained on leaves and something that could either be weed or mold.

“Smell helps with....with grounding” He said as he held them closer. Remy just smiled and closed their eyes to enjoy his touch.

“Poor little me” Janus dramatically said while fanning themself “I’m being all left out from the cuddles.. Oh woe! What a tragedy!”

The Rems snickered before both flopping over onto them so Jan became their personal pillow. They both cuddled up against his chest while he moved his arms around them.

“Have I told....Beanie have I told you ‘bout ‘bout uhhh Snake! Jannie’s snake! Ms. Carl!?” Remus asked, eyes still a bit clouded.

“Nah girl you haven’t. Wanna tell me ‘bout it in a long detailed rant?” Remy replied with a smile even though Janus very much had mentioned Ms. Carl to them.

“Yayaya! Okay so I”

Remus went on a long detailed rant about how he’d gotten Ms. Carl and all about how he got food for her and had helped Jan buy all the things needed to properly take care of her. Remy gasped along. Jan mostly sat back and listened, only flicking in to say how much of a gorgeous long lil good girl Ms. Carl was.

“Alright!” Remus exclaimed “You’re all looking like you’ve been dropped down into a torture chamber for 8 months without any food! So it’s dinner time!! Thirsting for empanadas anyone?”

“Babe you don’t have to. I’m sure there’s like tots some cereal in the fridge”

“nuh-uh-uh! Empanadas always cheer me up! So you are getting them!! If you want to!!”

The two others nodded eventually which made Remus shine up into a big grin.

“Great! Then I’ll just run down to the closest store and get what I need! I’ll be back faster than it takes a pig without a head to die!”

He quickly got up and gave them both a short hug before bolting out the door. It took only a second before Remy had flopped down even harder onto their friend.

“only us now”

Janus played with the tips of their hair “Nice and calm”

“I’m sorry. I’m feeling all gross and like uhghghg gross touching you ‘cause I’m all ghghghghg. Like I’ve barely been taking care of myself”

“Darling, I don’t mind. I am literally friends with Remus..Willingly!”

They chuckled “Truuue. Ugh girl I honestly can’t even like remember the last shower I took”

“I can help you” Janus blurted out without really thinking.

He went red immediately after. Remy stared at him before bursting out into scratchy giggles.

“Oh my gosh Janny!! You don’t gotta be so smooth! Girl!!”

“I meant I could help you over to the room!! Remus is probably going to get distracted by a squirrel or sidewalk liquid so you got plenty of time to shower”

“Aw you gonna carry me over? Like a pretty lil knight?” Remy teased “You been going to the gym or somethang- Oh girl!! You would look so good in like a tank top some gum shorts, maybe some legwarmers!!”

“I may not have gone to the gym, but I have gone over to Logie’s place so I suppose I can try”

Remy kept letting out happy lil giggles as Janus sat up and tried to find the way to lift them that would case them least pain. They ended up being lifted bridal style.

One of the lights had broken so there was only a soft shine in the bathroom. There was mold growing in the corner and Virgil had taken down the fire alarm so he could smoke while bathing.

Janus sat them down on the edge of the bathtub before turning on the tap in the bath. The two of them awkwardly stared at each other for a little while before Jan turned around. They were blushing so hard the red went down to their neck.

“Girl I’m just sitting here” Remy commented while eyeing the apparent blushing “Whatcha got lil Jannnnnnnnie so nervous?”

When he turned back they sent him the most shit eating grin he’d ever seen. He tried to casually lean against the wall “I was simply looking at this horrendous collection of mold you have. Nearly stomach turning”

They shrugged “You get used to it” They did their best to hide how much their hands were shaking from the simply effort of pulling off their dress.

There were bruises around the wrists, along their right arm, their collarbones. Bruises like fingermarks across their ribs. Jagged scrapes went across their knees along with deeply purple marks. And Janus had to pretend like the injuries weren’t the only thing they could see. Like they weren’t feeling sick to their stomach.

Remy leant down to try and drag off their socks and Janus stumbled forward without even really meaning to “Do you want me to help? I recall you needing help with uh socks before”

He got a big eyed look in response “You remember that?”

“Of course”

Their mouth was just slightly agape “You remember having to help me with my freaking socks and yet you haven’t like triple blocked my number?”

"Do you want help with it?"

They kept staring at him with wide eyes as they shrugged. He leant down on one knee in front of them and gently slipped off the socks. When he glanced up at them they were still looking at him with tender awe.

"You wanna join me?" Remy asked.

"What? In hell?"

They snickered "Not yet you silly bitch. I meant join me in the bath. Only if you like feel comfy. No like- you don’t Need to. I just thought like you do so much for me, you also tots deserve a nice warm like bath"

Janus managed to not change heir expression aside from a twitch in their eyelid. Their voice was it’s normal silky tone as they said

"Well if you also feel comfortable with it I see no reason not to"

Their thoughts were going a bit like "AAAAH FUCK OH SHIT FUCK AH OKAY FUCK WOWOWOW AHHHHH"

Jan got up and turned away from them. He unbuttoned his shirt and laid it neatly by the sink. From the corner of his eye he could see the rest of his crush’s clothes having been thrown away. A splash came from the water as Remy got in. He didn’t dare to turn around.

He reminded himself that something like this didn’t have to be romantic!!! or sexual!!! He’d showered with Patty before when they’d had to hurry to a party!! And they were just friends!!! Remy meant nothing with this!! Nothing was going to happen!!! He was just being a lovestruck idiot!!! A fucking dumbass!!

“Girl!!” Remy let out a light laugh “That’s some cute ass undies”

“Logan bought them for me”

Remy leant their head back and cackled “Of course he did!! That’s so perfect!!”

A chill went up Janus’ back. For a moment the insecure thoughts they’d managed to work away months ago came flooding back in. As they slipped off their underwear all they could think about was Remy seeing them as ugly, undesirable, annoying.

He turned around to get into the bath and was met with Remy looking directly into his eyes. They’d made themself small by pressing their knees to their chest. but there was this huge smile on their lips and pure- well pure happiness? in their eyes. Janus couldn’t quite pin what exactly the look in their eyes meant.

He made sure to keep his gaze at their face or higher as he sat down on the other side of the bath. It was small enough that the tips of their toes nearly touched.

“You just wanna get it like over with so we don’t gotta be all stale?” Remy asked.

Janus shrugged which they both took as a yes. For about 10 seconds they both looked the other up and down. Before Remy put on an overly serious expression and held out their hand. He shook it while nodding super seriously.

“Nice cook”

“Nice cook, elegant”

Their eyes met and they both burst out into laughter. All the insecurities seemed to wash away from Jan’s thoughts.

Remy tilted their head a little and smiled “You’re so pretty”

“Well so are you” Janus replied, just a bit flushed.

“No but really girl. I just- I just like adore the way your like body moves with you. Like all your skin and little like stretch marks and the way your thighs y’know. I think I could just watch you move for hours. The way your fat folds moved as you sat down, it was so. You’re so pretty. You’re mesmerizing. Look at me being so awestruck I’m churning out big words!! And you’ve got a fat ass too!!”

Jan put on a fake smug look “Well darling it just comes with being this glamorous”

“Girl!! true!! I got 0 glamour, that’s why I’m flat as fish fuck. Ugh. I feel fucking delirious just from like looking at you. It’s no wonder Loginson is all drooly over you if he gets to like be with you 24/7. It’s like winning the lottery”

They had this wonderfully glittering look in their eyes. Like a school kid giving their crush a flower during recess. Just pure bliss of being with their love.

“Ah yes. And unlike me being with you is like winning a trip to 24 hour long rollercoaster” He replied “That was complimentary, trust me” He took the shampoo on the counter and shook it around a little “Logan says I give great head rubbings. Little does he know it is because I got a bad cause of idiot sickness when I was younger and tried to do my own locs”

“Girl I get a bad cause of the idiot every time my eyes open”

Remy sprayed water over their hair before leaning forward to let him rub the shampoo in. They leant their forehead against his knee. The movements of his fingers were so calming their eyes nearly closed.

“you know who else has fibro?” Remy yawned out.

“Jesus?”

“Lady gaga. She’s so coooool. I wish I could be like here. Like she can like sing and take photos and dance! And wear heels! And have nice skirts and a fat ass! And I can’t even like make a Caesar salad on my own”

“Darling I can’t make a Caesar salad either. I always get stuck on the bread bits. A primal parts of my brain take over and I have to nibble them all down like a horse on horse ketamine” Janus replied “Anyhow isn’t Ms. Lady of the Gaga on a lot more treatments than you are?”

“How would you know?”

“Deary mine you showed me her documentary. You can not win this debate. Not against a fellow gay who you have ranted about missus Gaga for at least 3 hours too”

“Well shit”

Remy moved their hand into a fist and jokingly slammed it into the water. They kept making rings in the water with their finger before hesitantly running their hand along Janus’ side, right up to his waist. They followed their finger along the creases in his skin, along the rolls in his fat.

“Move your head back dear”

Janus murmured as he put his fingers under their chin to tilt their head back. He rinsed the shampoo out while they closed their eyes and relaxed their shoulders.

“You have much thicker hair than I imagined” Jan said “I like your new hairstyle, I believe I forgot to say that earlier”

“I wouldn’t call it a new hairstyle babe. Viv cuts my hair, we haven’t really had time to lately”

“It fits you, I think at least”

“......i dunno if long hair looks good on me”

“I think you could come out in a hairstyle directly from a 7 year old girl’s mind in 2004 and you would still look great”

Remy snorted “Oh girl trust me. I’ve been dating an emo for like 10 years. I’ve seen some hairstyles from 2004 and they ain’t pretty”

“But you are”

They looked at him before letting out a snorting laugh and pushing their palm right into his face while looking away.

“Oh wow. I show my true smooth self and I get a palm as a thanks” Janus teased back while putting his hand on top of their wrist.

“Please girl, it’s a gift that I’m still in the same room as you. That’s the true compliment” They shook the shampoo around “If you wanna I can do your hair for you. Just to be nice y’know”

Janus looked them up and down before squinting “Honey are you trying to assassinate my hair? I literally have 4c hair”

It took a moment before they dropped the shampoo right into the water “oh my gosh babe I’m a stupid bitch. I’m sorry”

He let up into a wonderful little smile that made their heart ache “It’s all good”

Remy leaned forward and put their arms around his shoulders. They looked up into his eyes and saw their own reflection “Thank you Janus”

“You know how much I love taking baths, a thanks is really not needed”

“No I mean...It really helped...I feel so ugly....I’m scared my hair getting longer makes me too look fem and you- and no guys I like will be attracted to me no more...and....and” Their voice wavered “..The bruises...”

Janus tilted his head and moved to stroke his thumb against their bruised skin “The bruises doesn’t change anything about you. They’re temporary, and according to Remus bruises look badass as hell. Actually now when I think about it I know several people who would describe bruises as quite enhancing of the features”

“And you’re supposed to be one of those people?”

“No. Though I do think the only ugly part of a bruise is how it appeared. I won’t speculate on how you got yours, but I will always be here to...well listen sounds cliche....I will always be here to kick your enemies down some stairs even if those enemies is your mental health and the stairs is a therapist’s office”

Remy let up into a weak smile “Janus, Will you kiss me?”

A wave of what felt like pure electricity went up through Janus’ entire body as they looked at him. His face instantly flushed into a soft pink and his entire brain got filled with ridiculously mushy fireworks and hearts.

“...You...Remy....Virgil...You’re still dating” Janus babbled out.

“I don’t wanna like force you into anything. We don’t have to. But if you want to kiss...I...I just want to feel a bit of...relief....a break from” They glanced down at their bruised wrists “From all of this”

“I- I do” It came out as a whisper “I do”

Janus cupped their cheeks and sent a warm look. They put their hands on top of his and tilted their head just a bit. He saw as they closed their eyes and parsed their lips. Saw how their shoulders tensed up in excitement. How small laugh lines became visible next to their eyes.

He leant in and kissed them.

It was a short one. A gentle one. Like the stroke of a soft feather against their lips. He had closed his eyes as well.

Janus moved back, still with his eyes closed. He tried to play casual but his entire body was shaking with excitement. His hands inevitable shot up to happy flap. He almost didn’t dare to open his eyes.

When he finally mustered up the courage to look at them he was met with Remy absolutely shining with pure happiness. A spark of electricity went up through their body and shot out into their arms. They reached out and took his hands.

“Your lips were even softer than I’d imagined” They murmured out, though they were so excited it came out much more high pitched than they meant to.

“I love you” Was all Janus could get out in response.

“I love you too!” Remy exclaimed “I swear Janny every time I like spend time with you I fell head over heels in love all over again. It is Wild!”

“I honestly thought I was talented with words but I can’t quite place what happens in my brain when I’m near you. I- You make me very Very Very dumb. And I like it......Do you want to kiss again...?”

“OMG! GIRL! YES!!”

They threw their arms even tighter around him and meet him in a kiss. He could feel how their lips drew into a grin. He moved his hands a bit farther up their back to make them inch closer.

The two of them moved closed until Janus’ back was against the bathtub wall and Remy was sitting in their lap. Their arms hang off of the edge of the bath. Jan broke away from the kiss to press quick kisses to their cheeks which made them let up into soft giggles.

Remy leant their head against the crook of his neck and let their lips play against his skin. Janus noticed as their muscles seemed to tense up and their movements became more rigid.

A slight shake went up their back before they started to slowly grind their hips against his as they opened their legs more. He froze in place and couldn’t help but notice the way Remy had shut their lips into a tight line. The way their toes had curdled up.

“Dear, you-”

Remy shot their head back to look at him “Sorry. Did I like make you uncomfy?”

“No! Not at all darling. It was just glaringly obvious how...your mood suddenly shifted” He let his hand rest against their cheek “There is nothing we Have to do deary. Just because we reciprocate each other’s feelings or because we’re uhhh naked and in a bath or because we had our first kiss, we don’t have to do anything. I know whenever couple’s kiss for the first time on tv they always seem to have sex immediately afterwards! But!! That just means we would be incredibly counter culture if we didn’t fuck immediately! And that is even more sexy when you think about it!”

They kept their eyes down into the water “I’m sorry for ruining it”

“You didn’t ruin anything! We can continue if you want to.....Do you want to?”

Remy tried to say no but the word wouldn’t leave their mouth. They couldn’t even shake their head. It felt like someone was strangling them. They could feel the hands around their neck. It was so real. The fingers were digging in. The nails were leaving marks.

They managed to shrug.

“A maybe isn’t a yes” Was all Janus said as he gently moved them back from his lap.

Remy crossed their arms around themselfs and tried to hide most of their face in the water. “I dunno if I want you to look at me right now” They mumbled out.

Janus started to fumble with his thumbs “..Do you wish for me to uhm leave?”

They shrugged again so he grabbed a towel and got up from the bath. He looked away from them while quickly taking on his clothes.

“I don’t know why you suddenly want me to go but I will respect it either way. Don’t...drown ?”

The moment they left the bathroom they could hear bonking followed by maniacal laughter coming from the kitchen. Remus was banging a rolling pin against a lump of dough.

“Oh hey J-anus!” He exclaimed “Finally got done with sealing away demons in the sink eh?”

“The pile of giant laundry taunted me until I helped Remy clean up. That’s all” They swiftly lied back while crossing their arms.

“C’mooonn now. You can’t lie like that to a fellow kinky hair haver. You’ve been bathing. I can see it”

Janus let out a string of muffled words that were completely unhearable.

“It’s oookkkKAy” He said while taking ahold of their hands. He pulled them along in a sort of shimy dance “I’m no teller” He actually winked “Now come here. I need your big soft librarian muscles!”

They fake sighed before going along with kneading out the dough. Remus kept pulling out weirder and weirder shaped vegetables from the shopping bag all while complimenting them on their ‘graceful kneading’.

His grin was way too big as he got to sharpen the kitchen knife. He was just about to stab the first onion when a metallic thud rang through the apartment. Followed by a muffled whimper.

The two of them shared a quick glance before abandoning everything to go over to the bathroom. Remus pressed his ear against the door and held his hand on the doorknob.

“Beanie? You good?”

“Yeah- Yeah all good- Sorry- I’m sorry” They were audibly choking back tears.

Remus opened the door just a little and glimpsed inside. Remy was laying on the floor with a towel hastily tied around their waist. Their knee was red from hitting against the bathtub.

“Sorry. I just- unstable legs. Yknow like- like” They forced a smile “Like jelly or whatever people say! I just got too excited about finally not being a grimy gross thing! Just fell a little! It’s fine! I can- I can walk and like fix it all myself! You can go whenever you want- You know that right? Whenever! I- I-”

Remus hunched down in front of them and leant his forehead against theirs. He wiped away a tear at the edge of their eye. Their shoulders were shaking.

“I’m sorry. You can leave. It’s okay. I’m sorry”

All Remy could think about was the times they’d called out to Virgil for help. His annoyed looks and harsh touches. His nearly constant rolling of the eyes or sighs and when they tried to apologize he would just shrug it off and say it was nothing. Until he let out a muttered insult. And then another. And another. until they wished they’d just rotted away in there so they didn’t have to be an annoying selfish burden of a useless problem who needs attention all the time and who only ever drain the energy of othERS AND OH GOD EVERYONE WAS GOING TO LEAVE THEM. JANUS AND REMUS WAS GOING TO REALIZE HOW HORRIBLE THEY ARE AND THEY HADN’T EVEN BEEN ABLE TO GIVE JANUS PLEASURE SO THEY MUST WANT TO LEAVE AND-

And Remus hugged them while Janus calmly unplugged the bath and picked up their clothes.

“You don’t need to say sorry Beanie. Y’know Ro gets so dramatic during every one of her periods she makes me get her like everything. You have literally seen how much caring I need while balls deep in a psychosis episode. This is nothing. Unless you’ve been affected by an alien and you’re legs are literally turning jello and you’re about to start floating down the drain pipe”

“I’m sorry”

“No! No! Beanie! This is just an opportunity for me to flex my super sexy macho muscles while helping you up!! This is only positive!! Because of this I’m gonna get so strong I’m gonna punch all the zombies when the apocalypse starts! Now c’mon”

Remus put his arm around their shoulders and let them lean against his side as he stood up. They kept looking down into the floor the entire time. Janus followed along as they went out into the living room.

He held his head close against theirs and whispered “I know that guilt. We’re not burdens, I promise. Beside now i get to honk honk”

He stared directly into his eyes as he reached out and pretended to honk their shoulder blade. It managed to get a small smile from them.

“Well! I got a kitchen to burn! Jannie? Could you-”

“Yes of course” They quickly stepped in and let Remy lean against them.

Jan led them into the bedroom and helped them down on the bed. The enby sighed and pulled up a wrinkled dress from one of the piles of unclean laundry on the floor.

The weight of the bed shifted while they put it on. They felt Janus lean his head against their spine. His fingers absentmindedly fibbled with the end of the skirt.

“I didn’t dislike the kiss” Remy mumbled out “I just had to like take a sec....I wasn’t ready for you to like not want to...not want to...get something in...return”

“Darling mine, a kiss is already enough. I don’t need anything more than being with you. Besides it’s good. We shouldn’t- It wouldn’t- You and Virgil seem to be very- slightly- a bit codependent and I would feel horrible at best and incredibly manipulative at worst if i somehow worsened that. I don’t think it would be healthy for either of us to attempt to date or have any sort of sexual relationship before you and Virgil have departed ways and you’ve met this lovely thing called professional help”

They could feel his lips grace against their skin as he spoke. Their hand searched around behind them until they felt his warmth. They held onto his hand ever so lightly.

“I’m sorry. If you dare say ‘it’s okay’ another fucking time Girl I’m gonna bite something!”

They could literally feel the sly smile Janus got “Oh honey I’m not against some biting. Vampire affection and all that”

“Girl!! Shut up!! Jasus!!”

They rolled their eyes while biting their tongue to keep back a laugh. Janus moved his free arm around their waist and butted his forehead jokingly against their neck.

“There’s that usual Remy tone”

“High pitched and annoying?”

“High pitched, annoying and lovely”

They leant their head back and looked at him “Can’t we just kiss? Ain’t gotta date just ‘cause we kiss”

Janus hesitated before cracking up into a shining grin and kissing them.

He laid down against the sheets and let Remy cuddle up on top of him. They twirled one of his locs between their fingers while kissing him.

“I’ve never kissed anyone except for Virgil before” Remy murmured out.

“Really? I hope I wasn’t a disappointment then”

“Nah girl. Don’t ya worry. This is like your first non Logie kiss as well right?”

Janus slowly blinked “Not really. I have” He started to count on his fingers.

“GIRL???? You gotta think this long???? Have I been hanging around a player all this time without knowing??????? JANISTER????”

“I think you underestimate how many parties Logan and Patty go to. He likes to bring me with them okay. I’m not against some mingling. Some flirting even! Gasp! I know! How mischievous of them!”

Remy let out a shrill laugh “oh hun I wish like every day could be like this. Just me and my JanJan and my fellow Rem”

Janus nearly held back his words “And Virgil?”

They didn’t respond.

He tried to break the sudden silence “On second thought I think it’s really good you turned me down. I’ve never been with someone with chronic pain before so if you would be fine with it I would like to hear what you and- what you do to prevent pain during intimacy”

Remy squinted at them “......uhhh like...like nothing...???”

“Excuse me?” They waved their hands around “I mean I suppose that feeling pain could be a positive thing during sex even for those with chronic pain! I don’t judge!”

“No! Not like that! I just- Me and Viv haven’t talked about it” They shrugged.

“You haven’t discussed....how not to cause you pain during pleasure acts? Honey I can get the same kind of pains a person would get after a workout the morning after I have done anything. I am unsure if your body is capable to go through that kind of physical activity without triggering some kind of serious pain. Deary I’m so sorry”

“It’s just like a thing that happens in relationships y’know!! Like I just kinda take it and like try to hide my whimpers and stuff to not like ruin the mood so he doesn’t like get annoyed and I try to like hold on so I don’t gotta stop in the middle like very time, and then it’s like over. I’ve never really thought it matters how I enjoy it. It’s just good for when you gotta end a fight or like make him happy or whatever”

Janus held back a grimace “My love, We can leave. Just a reminder. Even if Remus is cooking right now, if you want to leave we Will leave”

“My head hurts whenever I think of him. Everything hurts. Can’t we just go join Remus? I...It hurts”

He pressed a soft kiss to the bruise next to their eye “Of course”

Remus had finished up both the empanada dough and filling. He was putting the filling into the dough and sealing it up all prettily. His movements were slow and his eyes were staring off at the wall.

When he heard their steps, or well Janus steps since they were carrying Remy, he turned and slowly waved at them “dissociating. Dunno why....not in an upset like way so....so don’t like worry”

The smell of Oswald’s axe cologne still lingered around the kitchen from his last visit. As well as the slight smell of ketamine and rohypnol. It wasn’t prominent enough to make Remus notice it but enough to make his subconscious flight response fire up.

Remy sat down on the kitchen floor as Janus asked Remus to show them how to make the empanadas. They took over and let Remus sit down on the floor as well to rest up.

Him dissociating made Remy dissociate as well. Janus had a slight smile on their lips the entire time as he listened to the two of them groggily telling stories to each other. It was all slow downed and interrupted with both of them giggling and gasping at almost everything.

He only stopped babbling with his bestie when Jan needed to know how long the empanadas should stay in the oven. He proceeded to drag Remy out into the living room.

When Janus came out with a plate overfilled with the finished empanadas the Rems had built a blanket fort around the sofa and had put on some incredibly cheesy movie from the 90′s. Most of the dissociation had disappeared as the touch of the soft blankets were really grounding.

They both dragged Janus into the fort. Remus did a whole monologue about welcoming them into the super secret Frightening Fearful Fort.

Remy kissed both of their cheeks “Thanks babes for the food!!!”

Jan and Remus kissed them on each of their cheeks at the same time “You’re welcome darling” “You can pay me back in blood, Worm!!”

Remy used Jan’s tummy as a pillow and let the rest of their body stretch out between his legs. They ate while the movie played. Every now and again they would sneak kisses though Remus just made hand fisted jokes whenever he saw them.

“Awww you lil gross love birbs are sooo cute and disgusting!” Remus awed out while pouting and tilting his head “Now I gotta give 20 dollars to Ro though. She betted you def had a thing going on and I just kept saying we were all just friends”

“We are!” Remy exclaimed back.

“Friends can kiss! I have kissed Patty and we are only platonic friends and steppartners in law!”

Remus started to vibrate “Does that mean you can kiss meeeee? We can send food waste to each others mouths via tongue????”

For some reason Remy and Janus glanced at each other before both shrugging and nodding.

“GaBablaghafucgha” Was the literal noise Remus got out as he for once blushed.

He waved his hands around and tried to hide his red face by pulling his t-shirt over his head.

“Girl we weren’t gonna all sudden kiss you”

“I know!!!”

Just the thought of it actually happening had sent him into a flustered mess. Just daydreaming about it made him melt. He couldn’t handle this.

“AHHH! SlEEP! It IS SLEEPING TIME!! Or else the uhhhh night goblins and the Mean non blue ghosts will come and uhhh devour us and rip out our calcium!!! C’mon!! C’mon!!! SleeEEP!” Remus blurted out to distract from his flushed cheeks.

“You are really inviting yourself into Remy’s bed like that. Rude. Unclassy even. No manners” Janus tsked.

“Bitches I’mma cold ass fucker. I need my two babes warming me up!!”

“YAYAYAYA!”

They all left the dishes and blanket fort for tomorrow. Jan and Remy both quietly reassured their friend that he could leave the bed at any time if being so close to them made him uncomfortable.

None of them bothered to change their clothes. They all just piled up into the bed. Janus was dragged into the middle for cuddle reasons. The Rems curdled up on him from both sides. Remy stole another kiss.

“Goodnight babes!” “Goodnight darlings” “Goodnight sleep tight don’t let the cowboys bite!”

It took a little while to fall asleep because they kept mumbling out silly little half finished sentences and jokingly kicking at each other under the blanket, but once they did fall asleep it was the first time in several months that any of them had slept as peaceful as they did.

Remy woke up in the early mornings. Their body was already tensed up before their eyes had opened. But as soon as they heard Janus’ calm snoring they calmed down.

He was half laying on top of them with his arms closely spun around them. His cheek was smoshed against the top of their head. He looked so happy even with his eyes closed and drool going down his chin.

They could have probably stayed there enjoying the moment until he woke up if it wasn’t for Remus being gone from the bed. He must have tucked the blankets around them closer before he left.

The door to the living room was slightly open, letting in a streak of dim morning light. They could see Remus sitting on the couch with his back against them. They bit the inside of their cheek while thinking.

Remy looked over to the corner of the room and began to whisper “Watchers? You here? Should I like go join Rem? I mean maybe he just like woke up at a reasonable time?? or maybe he like left ‘cause he was uncomfy and it would be super rude of me to intrude????? Ugh. Why does having friends gotta be so complicated. Girl help!”

〚Hi thanks for reading all this. i just wanted to drop in and say that in the original idea for this mini fic remus wasnt there. it was bc of an ask from Snail that he was added and as you can imagine a lot of scenes changed and were added. if y’all ever wonder how much y’alls asks change things. Also i think some people have been away from the blog for a lil bit bc of exams so i hope this mini fic can sit here as a sort of present for when you come back from winning over those darn exams <3 〛

#mini fic #Thanks for the ask!#glow eyes #sanders sides #oh shit tme to fucking hffbhff proofread its 1:30 am jesusfhubskdjjksd

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exedworld · 4 years ago

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EXED WORLD ALMANAC

11th ANNUAL RECAP ISSUE MAXIMUM DELUXITY EDITION!

JUNE - ISH 20 YRS FROM BABL

NOTE: it is highly recommended that while reading through this you scroll along with the original material (x) because things like tomsen’s illustrations and the actual Energy of her writing is lost in this simpler format.

Once again once again, another year of rushing through the asphalt veins of this great nation, little blood clots waiting to get stuck, but hold the embolism, don’t break out flow, we’re not braindead yet.

A strange year in a strange century of strange years. What’s going on in you, exed world? Do you feel ok? Do you feel something building? Is it cry or laugh? Vomit or orgasm? Can we help you get it out?

Barbara’s getting tired. She complains louder every mile/day but hard to blame her. This year we completed 1 full perambulation of the Benighted States of America. Several zigzags through the interior but we never find much in that heart of darkness. America is scooped out hollow and nightmares Lurk in the VOID: You know about it don’t you? If you ever leave your circle of firelight you know about it. Reality’s only as hard as we make it and we’ve made it melty sherbet. We learned that when DAWN OF THE DEAD crawled out of our screens and heads.

But we’re not here to recap The Suggestible Universe. You all know the new rules. We’ll just say this to you fantastic voyagers who dare to tread the Midwaste.

DO NOT TREAD LIGHTLY. Stomp and kick and shout. Make every step hit hard, make every breath a declaration that you’re here, that you’re real.

Stay close to your friends if you have them. Find a mind to confirm that you’re standing on the earth, or you might just fall through it.

Learn from our mistakes. You don’t wanna see the things so soon.

BUT HERE WE ARE. FILLED TO THE BURSTING WITH ANOTHER YEAR THE HOURS SPRAYING OUT OF US THROUGH THE HOLES IN OUR SOULS.

Where to begin? Where did we begin?

It’s all starting to look the same. Forests eat cities. Deserts eat forests. Detroit is sinking, almost gone, just a few decades to become ancient beyond ancient. What was ancient to the pharaohs? What great deeds were done in history’s history?

What primeval heroes did Gilgamesh admire? Did he remember his cave crawling ancestors? Did they remember the trees? The muh? the sea?

WE ARE THE NEWEST THINGS ON EARTH. WE ARE THE BLEEDING EDGE. WHAT A PRIVILEGE AND A DUTY! AND ALL OF THEM WATCHING US. LET’S NOT DISAPPOINT OUR PARENTS.

So! You know the state of the union. If you’ve been paying attention, if you haven’t skipped any issues, you know what’s going on. We told you what we found in the cities: X after X after X after X after X xxxxxx

No time for lists of nothing in the annual recap. What GOOD have we gathered in all these miles? What have we found besides DUST and DEATH?

Whispers...

Rumors...

More and more every day. Since we left the west coast.

Something HAPPENED. Something’s HAPPENING. Something’s GOING TO HAPPEN

BUT WHAT????????????

WHY???

Wild reports of recoveries. Rememberings. THEY LIVE. Can it be TRUE? It’s can’t! Can it? HOW??

Consider the data: Hive dissipations. Wandering Dead. Irregular behaviors: reduced aggression increased confusion, mass migrations to parts unknown.

We are dubious.

Rumors say it spread from Cascadia but it was status quo when we left the coast early summer. How much can change in two months?

AND YET: OTHER ODDITIES OF NOTE: Ossie swarms gathering in the Midwaste.

We saw them by the thousands, like squirming nest of ants. PUREST HORROR.

BUT WHY? No Living prey. Dying in the desert. Why? Are they broken? Who broke them? Or did we imagine the whole thing?

IT WAS ALL A DREAM

Vacillations increasing in quantity and intensity, while cities blinking ON and OFF. All fine and good, we welcome the flux — but we question the synchronicity because flux is EVERYWHERE. RUMBLES AND GRUMBLES FROM ALL DIRECTIONS.

DID YOU KNOW? Axiom is stirring.

Oh yes Cascadians very sorry but the Axiom Group is alive and well despite the precious dreams of your shadowed corner of the world. We didn’t have the heart to tell you while we were visiting but now that we’re far away and you can’t at us... WAKE UP! They’re back.

Did you really think they left? Remission is not cure. Guessing you’ll learn soon enough Cascadia. Rumors of westward expansion. Dusty offices reopening. Ribbon cuttings. Fundraiser galas. Decapitations. We saw it ourselves, Exed World! Convoys en route.

WISH WE COULD RADION A WARNING but you know how that is. We’re working on it. BUT FOR NOW... TOO LATE. Cascadia (if it ever does, if any one’s even reading these) whatever’s going to happen WILL HAVE HAPPENED X X X

So sorry, Cascadia. Hope it worked out.

But for the rest of the “world”, TAKE NOTE. Nature hates a vacuum, Power Vacuum most of all. Only a matter of before something fills it so the question is WHAT? Watch the madness on your screens. Chew the Lotus. There’s your old world. Your good old days.

Is that the filling we want in our donut? IT’S STALE. It’s SOUR. It’s FULL OF WORMS. DON’T LET US REGRESS TO THE MEAN. DON’T LET US REGRESS TO THE CRUEL.

FORESTS EAT CITIES. DESERTS EAT FORESTS. THE MOUTH BEHIND EVERYTHING EATS THE EARTH. THE UNIVERSE. ALL OUR FEARS AND DREAMS... Sorry. sorry. Getting negative again.

The bright side. The bright side. Must remember there is one.

Because LOOK: Axiom is closest living link to Old Gov. It’s the chicken to Old Gov’s dinosaur and with a little digging, a little bribing, a little marijuana and alcohol, one can REVERSE ENGINEER THEIR DNA AND SNIFF THE DINO’S BREATH.

No, we haven’t found the tower. No big teary confessions in our interviews. But clues emerge. Bread crumbs drop. For the first time in forever, we have a trail to follow.

So we keep heading east. The bomb is ready. All we need is a place to drop it. Perhaps New York? Back into Axiom’s loveless embrace? Wherever the trail l e a d s . . .

Maybe this will be the last issue! A good one to go out on. LOOK HOW PRETTY 😍 Maybe we’ll topple the tower and open the airwaves and put ourselves out of a job. WE CAN DREAM. And if it happens you’ll know it. You’ll feel it. And if you don’t feel it you’ll HEAR it when the static stops and we scream into your radios.

“HI!” we’ll scream. “HELLO EXED WORLD! LET’S BE FRIENDS.”

So I say this very very literally: STAY TUNED. Keep your eyes and ears on those rivers of madness for as long as you can stand it because REAL NEWS is about to break. We feel it. The ground is hot under our feet. The rain feels like tears, the sun feels like love, the air hums like harp strings.

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS WHEN SOMETHING BIG IS COMING.

THE GRAVITY WELL OF IMPORTANCE. THE ATOMIC MASS OF MEANING. BIG CHANGE DISTORTS TIME AND WE REMEMBER BEFORE IT HAPPENS.

So hold on a little longer. Stay alive and keep living. EAT A RIPE PEAR. PET A CUTE CAT. MAKE LOVE TO A BEAUTIFUL HUMAN. We want so badly to sleep forever, to drown in our tears and sink to the bottom but NO. NO!!

We’re holding in our spilling guts and lapping up our bleeding blood and squeezing the mess of use together because WE WANT TO STAY. WE WANT TO BE HERE WHEN IT HAPPENS. WE WANT TO SEE WHAT’S NEXT.

WE LOVE YOU EXED WORLD!!!!! — DBC

#idk how to tag this just yet but Here You Go!!

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multiverseforger · 4 years ago

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Mister Mind came to Earth during World War II, drawn by its radio broadcasts; he especially loved Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy. Upon learning that his beloved Charlie was not real, he decided to conquer the world instead. To this end, he formed the first Monster Society of Evil, which was merely a shadow of what was to come. He gathered known villains like Dummy, Mister Who, Nyola, Oom the Mighty, and Ramulus to make up the Monster Society of Evil. They succeeded in capturing Hawkgirl. Not long after its founding, the other villains tried to kill him and Mister Mind retreated to Earth-S. Without his leadership, the team was quickly defeated in battle by the All-Star Squadron.[7]

Captain Marvel Adventures: "The Monster Society of Evil" (Earth-S)Edit

As a side-effect of the reality-altering Crisis on Infinite Earths, Mister Mind arrived in the universe of Earth-S (where Fawcett's former characters dwelled) sometime around 1846 (it was mentioned in this story that he had been working on a weapon for 97 years). His brilliant intellect, telepathic powers, and ruthlessness allowed him to conquer much of space, establishing bases on many different worlds as well as varied locations on Earth. He recruited supervillains, armies, and entire alien species to aid him in his attempt to conquer the Earth, and first relayed his information from the planetoid Punkus via radio. He began his reign of terror on Earth in 1943, boasting that he and the Monster Society of Evil would give Captain Marvel "nightmares from now on". This formed the basis of the plot for "The Monster Society of Evil" serial in Captain Marvel Adventures #22–46 (March 1943 to May 1945). Mind was not revealed as a worm until Captain Marvel Adventures #26.

Mind had many and varied plans to conquer Earth, and to destroy Captain Marvel and/or his teenaged alter-ego, Billy Batson. But Captain Marvel stopped all of Mind's plans, dismantled all of his resources, and arrested, frightened away, or accidentally killed all of his henchmen. Reverse cliffhangers were used in the Monster Society stories, such as Mister Mind about to be crushed under a careless heel or about to be crushed in a paper roller. Finally, a desperate Mister Mind attacked Captain Marvel's alter ego Billy Batson with ether and left him unconscious. But he then realized that without his henchmen, he was practically helpless and unable to kill him. Captain Marvel soon captured the world's wickedest worm and had him tried and executed for killing 186,744 people.

Shazam!: Return of the SocietyEdit

Shazam! #2 was Mister Mind's first appearance in a DC comic, and depicted his return to villainy. Although he had been sentenced to death in the electric chair, Mister Mind's alien physiology proved resistant to the high voltage, and he entered a state of suspended animation that was mistaken for death. On the verge of being stuffed for display in a museum, he awakened, hypnotized the taxidermist into creating a duplicate, and escaped.

Shortly after Captain Marvel's own return from suspended animation, he countered Mister Mind trying to destroy the country with an expanding balloon-like weapon in St. Louis. With intelligence from a reformed Herkimer, Marvel succeeds in thwarting Mind's plan and capturing the worm.[8]

Several future issues of Shazam! depict Mister Mind attempting to recruit new henchmen and reform the Monster Society of Evil, at one point even recruiting a displaced Lex Luthor from Earth-One.[9] The Monster Society of Evil was briefly reformed in Shazam! #14 (September–October 1974).

An escaped Mister Mind, hungry for revenge, assembled a new, smaller group which included Doctor Sivana, his evil children Georgia and Sivana Jr, and Ibac. They attempted to attack the Marvel Family - Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Jr. - with a death ray that created "dream" monsters using first evil thoughts and later the nightmares of Uncle Marvel. The Marvels end up defeating the Monster Society by convincing Uncle Marvel to dream up "dream" versions of the Marvels to fight the monsters.

World's Finest Comics: The Monster Society Strikes BackEdit

Mister Mind reformed his Monster Society of Evil one last time in the classic continuity, in World's Finest Comics #264–267 (August–September 1980 to February–March 1981). Almost the entire Marvel Family had to unite in order to stop them—Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., and the three Lieutenant Marvels: Tall Marvel, Fat Marvel, and Hill Marvel. Their wicked plans were wide-ranging, beginning with an assault on Egypt, expanding to a scheme to reverse the entire Earth's topography, Oggar raising an evil army from the sands and dusts of Egypt for Black Adam to lead, and conquering hundreds of planets and using them to build an army of spaceships. Their plans culminated in a massive assault on the Rock of Eternity, home of the Marvels' benefactor, the wizard Shazam.

World's FunnestEdit

In the Elseworlds story Superman & Batman: World's Funnest (November 2000), the two near-omnipotent imps Mister Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite engage in a tremendous duel that destroys many planes of reality. One of these appears to be a version of Earth-S. During their time there, they run into a version of the Monster Society of Evil that is slightly different from any other, featuring many of Captain Marvel's enemies. Mxyzptlk easily destroys them (with a tentacled beast labeled Mr. Mxyzptlk's Anti-Social Monster) when they begin to annoy him, along with the rest of the universe; however, by the end of the book, all is returned to what it was.

Post-CrisisEdit

Shazam! A New BeginningEdit

Mister Mind's return to the DC Universe in wake of Crisis was first hinted at in Roy Thomas' Shazam! A New Beginning. It closed with a defeated Dr. Sivana hiding out and drinking tequila in a Mexican dive bar. He ponders how he will defeat Captain Marvel when he sees a worm in the bottle and has the idea of using it as a weapon against the hero.

Thomas' idea of Mister Mind being a mutated tequila worm was not followed up on and he was given a different origin in his next appearance.

The Power of Shazam!Edit

Mister Mind was fully re-introduced into the DC Universe in Jerry Ordway's The Power of Shazam! series in 1996. Mind was one of a race of millions of mind-controlling worms from the planet Venus, who had plans to invade and take over the Earth, which they claim to have once ruled around the Ice Age. Appointed as the go-ahead agent, Mind arrived on Earth during World War II, by means of an indestructible green Venusian space suit, but was captured by Bulletman, Starman, and Green Lantern Abin Sur before enacting his plan. Mind eventually escaped, stowing away on the Magellan space probe, and decades later forced Doctor Sivana to join forces with him, needing Sivana's scientific prowess to facilitate the Venusian worms' plans. He took control of the wealthy Sinclair Batson in order to finance those plans.

The worms' plans to invade the Earth were thwarted by Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, who succeeded in killing all of the worms by sending them into deep space where they froze, save for Mister Mind, whom they placed in the custody of Sergeant Steel and the Department of Metahuman Affairs. Mind eventually escapes, takes over Steel's mind, and programs the robot Mister Atom, another Marvel Family villain in Steel's custody, to destroy the town of Fairfield, where Billy Batson (Captain Marvel) and Mary Bromfield (Mary Marvel) lived with their adopted parents. After Mister Atom's nuclear blast destroys the city and kills nearly all of its residents, the Marvels arrive in Washington, DC seeking revenge. Mister Mind's plot to set off a nuclear holocaust included using clones of himself to take over the minds of several regular American citizens, who were to make their ways to nuclear bomb facilities and initiate a nuclear holocaust. However, Mind's plan was foiled by the Marvel Family and Green Lanterns Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan.

52Edit

Mister Mind played an integral role in DC's year-long 2006-2007 weekly comic, 52, although the importance of his role in the series was revealed gradually over time and involved the concepts of time travel and temporal paradoxes.

The day following the end of the Infinite Crisis event, Dr. Sivana discovers Mister Mind lying in a crater in the desert and pockets him, sealing him in a specimen jar and taking it back to his laboratory to prevent him from interfering with his plans to take over the world.[10] Sivana bombards Mind with particles of Suspendium, a time-altering element introduced in the 1970s Shazam! title. Although Sivana is then kidnapped by Intergang and forced to join their Science Squad, the Suspendium induces Mister Mind's delayed metamorphosis. As Sivana is dragged off, Mind observes a televised memorial for the heroes lost in the Infinite Crisis, and takes particular note of Skeets, the robotic companion of the time-traveling superhero Booster Gold.[11] With his metamorphosis beginning, Mind proceeds to weave a cocoon around himself, which doubles as a matter transporter that he uses to beam himself inside Skeets in Dr. Magnus' lab,[12][13] intending to use the robot as a "cradle" where he can spend the following year gestating and completing his transformation.

Destroying Skeets from within, Mind adopts his identity and makes plans to consume the Multiverse, which had returned to existence as a result of Infinite Crisis. Discovering that Rip Hunter is aware of his plans, Mind, as Skeets, attempts to hunt him down and draw him out, to no avail. Eventually, he discovers Hunter hiding in the bottle city of Kandor, but when Hunter turns the Phantom Zone projector on him, Mind overpowers it and "eats" the Phantom Zone itself. At the end of the year, Mind tracks Hunter and Booster down to the lab of T. O. Morrow, intent on acquiring the head of the Red Tornado, whose computerized brain has mapped the Multiverse.[14] There, Mind's gestation completes and he emerges from within Skeets in a monstrous imago form known as a "Hyperfly". Now, instead of feeding on the brainwaves of individuals, he feeds on space-time itself and decides to devour the entire Multiverse.[15] Booster and Hunter flee back in time to the moment of the Multiverse's birth, with the now-gigantic Mind in pursuit, following them from universe to universe, all 52 of them, where he consumes portions of each world's history, altering their timelines and creating 52 new, distinct Earths.[16] Mind is lured back to Hunter's lab, where he shrinks in size and becomes trapped within Skeets' Suspendium-lined shell.[17] Booster hurls Mind backwards through time, where the Suspendium reverts Mind back to his larval form, and lands on the day after the end of Infinite Crisis, where he is found by Dr. Sivana and sealed in the jar. The remaining 52 seconds of time are used to bind him in a time loop.[18]

Also during the series, unrelated to Mind's activities, a new incarnation of the Monster Society was formed, consisting of the Four Horsemen of Apokolips, creatures engineered by Intergang's Science Squad (including Sivana). Of particular note is Sobek, a humanoid crocodile not unlike the beings who were members of the Pre-Crisis Monster Society. This Monster Society attacked the Black Marvel Family for not joining the Freedom of Power treaty, and killed Isis and Osiris, only to be destroyed by Black Adam, save for Death, who flees. In his hunt for Death, Black Adam destroys the nation of Bialya, before defeating the final Horseman, torturing it for information, and killing it.[19]

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil (2007)Edit

A new Captain Marvel prestige format four-issue limited series from DC Comics, Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, written and illustrated by Jeff Smith (creator of Bone) began publication on February 7, 2007. Smith's Shazam! miniseries, in the works since 2003, is a more traditional take on the character, returning Captain Marvel to his roots with a story set outside of the DC Universe. In this version, Mister Mind resembles a small snake, with a more threatening face sans glasses, while wearing a modern style communicator headset. Many different monsters are shown in the Society, with the Crocodile-Men being replaced with the Alligator-Men.

The New 52Edit

In September 2011, The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, Mister Mind makes his first appearance after Doctor Sivana's alliance with Black Adam fails. Sivana heads to the Rock of Eternity, where he cannot get in because of a magical shield. He cries out for someone to help him save his family, saying that while science has failed them, magic could save them. Sivana then discovers a caterpillar-like creature trapped in a bottle within the Rock. The creature claims that people call him "Mister Mind" and makes note that he and Doctor Sivana shall be the "best of friends".[20]

DC RebirthEdit

Mister Mind returns in the new Shazam! series during the "DC Rebirth," still in an alliance with Sivana. Residing inside of Sivana's ear, Mister Mind has Sivana go to a doctor's office in order to cut out the tongue of a "medicine man" as it is needed for a spell. It is revealed that Mister Mind's real name is Maxivermis Mind and is believed to have originated from the Wildlands, one of the seven realms in the Magiclands. Believed to originally be a simple bookworm, Mister Mind suffered abuse as a child and tried for years to break into the Library of Eternity. He eventually succeeded and after absorbing all the knowledge and power of countless spells, he returned to the Wildlands and took his revenge on those who he believed had wronged him. Achieving his revenge, he set his sights on the Council of Eternity. He managed to work his way inside the Council and it took the combined might of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury, and ! to contain Mister Mind, but he was able to cause the death of Solomon. Mind's goal is to consume and control all the power of the Magiclands.[21]

Mister Mind and Doctor Sivana plan to head to the Monsterlands in order to build the Monster Society of Evil from its inhabitants. As King Kid fights the Shazam Family in Philadelphia, Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind are directed to a boat by Dummy who cannot accompany them since he cannot deal with water. When they arrive at the Dungeon of Eternity, Mister Mind states that the inmates of the Dungeon of Eternity were gathered from all over the Magiclands and imprisoned for challenging the Council of Wizards. In addition, Mister Mind stated that the Monsterlands used to be called the Gods' Realm until the day of Black Adam's betrayal which led them to strip the gods of their powers and close the doors to the Magiclands. They find a small prison containing Superboy-Prime in the Monsterlands as Superboy-Prime states that he can hear what Mister Mind is saying. Mister Mind and Doctor Sivana begin their plans to free the Monster Society of Evil from the Dungeon of Eternity.[22]

Mister Mind senses the fight between the Shazam Family and Mamaragan as he instructs Doctor Sivana to stab his magical eye with a dagger which starts to melt the doors to the cells holding the Monster Society of Evil. Then Mister Mind started to control C.C. revealing to Billy that he is using him as a host and not Doctor Sivana. Mister Mind states to the Shazam Family that he plans to use C.C. to unite the Magiclands under his rule. He then proceeds to summon the Monster Society of Evil leaving Dummy behind who is tricked by Superboy-Prime into freeing him.[23] Shazam faces off against a Mister Mind-controlled C.C. Batson while the others fight the Monster Society of Evil. During the fight, Scapegoat and Red Queen ask when they are going to get a turn. Mister Mind states that they will get their chance when the Magiclands are united.

Mister Mind states to Shazam that it took him and Doctor Sivana awhile to find C.C. Batson. When Doctor Sivana uses a spell on Victor and Rosa Vasquez to get what Mister Mind wants, Shazam asks what that is. Speaking through C.C., Mister Mind states that he wants what Mamaragan and his Council of Wizards denied him years ago....access to the magic of the Seven Magiclands. When Tawky Tawny tries to help Shazam, Mister Mind has C.C. turn him into a cub. Then he has Doctor Sivana summon the Book of Champions from the Rock of Eternity. Mister Mind then has Shazam read the spells on the pages in exchange for sparing Victor and Rosa. Complying with Mister Mind, Shazam reads "Seven lands. Seven wars. Seven locks. Seven doors. Magic realms hidden now, show yourself to the Champion and with one final word, the spell is complete! SHAZAM!"

This causes all the doorways to the Seven Magiclands to be unlocked and obliterated. Using a spell from the Book of Champions, Shazam shrinks himself with the Subtraxerim spell and enters C.C.'s head to confront Mister Mind.[24] Shazam confronts Mister Mind inside C.C.'s head and engages him in a magic battle. To prevent Mister Mind from casting spells, Shazam punches his talkbox enough to emit energy that knocks out the Monster Society of Evil. After using the Corpus Magnum spell to grow, Shazam works to undo Mister Mind's spell only for Superboy-Prime to interfere. He was able to undo the spell after he and Black Adam defeated Superboy-Prime.[25]

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malesherbes · 4 years ago

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A voyage through Limbos

We went to see the dawn on the castle

On the castle by the sea

The wind, beyond wave’s loud hurling, whistle

That the grey faced moon loves me.

The black castle stands alone on the shore

Stern faced watcher of the strand.

Amid great columns, cyclopean doors,

We, children in white gowns, fled.

And beholding still the birth of the sun,

From the rusty cradle rose

The wizard of infinite tides, golden

Lonely wonder our eyes chose.

Whipping my cheeks, the joyful, salty breeze

Sings every morning’s strange hymn,

My fingers, red from cold, laughing, I freeze

In this shining ecstasy.

Always we came back, in the cliff’s pale light

In the castle by the strand,

To watch golden seas glow in dying nights,

Laugh in the cold with my friends.

Now, the friends are gone, the strand far away,

And the castle falls in ruins.

The wizard vanished, and the dawn is grey,

Far away in horizon.

We walk in the town, verticals scattered through

Dim light, grim faces, woe pouring with the rain,

Chartered reflections in sky tearing glass,

Streets with swirling shadows, wandering smoke, I knew

That this place had no gates to let away pain.

In the dark alleys of squalid downtown,

Red cries, patches of colour blown

And neon’s shriek hurling scorch in my eyelids

It’s call, in vulgar tones, raw in raw,

Repeats: here, house of limbos.

In the fantastical blue mist, the man’s voice echoes

“Limbos can give you back past years”

(With his baleful eyes he looks like a sorcerer)

“And forgotten loves, and nights of pleasure, and”

(His plump fingers twitch like pale, mad spiders.)

The voice fades in the rain, faint consciousness echoed,

Our desperate beings in lazy caves swallowed,

Our winged guide, with purple coat, floats,

In the fog of the depths. Mesmerizing shapes breath

In the preternatural hideousness of the crypt.

I fall on a couch with vivid numbness

Something in my hand, my mouth, sweet water, taste,

Hot and languid air exhaling nothingness

Perfumes, wonderful waves, sweetest dream; I faint

And in the blind bowel of limbos, I fonder.

“Golden tide, grey cliff, red sun, see again

Come back to the moon

Silver moon by the sea

Forget the pain in the yellow wind swoon.”

I, born in limbos, float away beyond pain,

Adrift and enlightened, father away, white flames

And light soft as a cocoon,

Peaceful whispers of clear lagoons.

So far, so far in my ears, the calm rolling waves

And my soul drowning in sweetest infinity

Flying in wonder clouds, the sibyl in my eyes

Opened my dry sockets to orbs of great visions.

Then I saw them: green gardens with unknown flowers

In blue grass blooming like some frail galaxies

And high trees with white boughs, and fantastic towers

With songs and shadows, treasures and faeries.

Then I saw the shore, with breathing salt and hurricanes

And far away (everything in limbos is so far)

The sea, the castle, the wizard,

And looking at the limbos’ ghost, me.

Me crying and the shore in godly storms torn

Me singing and the castle in shriek cries erupt

Me happy, in tornados swirling

Half dying in the wind-

Was I so young back then?

Me, the dawn, the wizard, the purple coat and velvet gloves

The echo of forgotten years, a face (her face?) a dove

Flying high in the sun. Falling feathers, snow

And immortal beyond. (Everything is so far in limbos.)

On the remote heights shine splendours, other sights

Things from outer worlds under ominous suns

Things men’s eyes could not see, half vanished in the night

And still, strange smells of dreams and blue smoke in my lungs.

Things I thought I forgot.

The distant song, always:

“You saw me flying

the wizard by the sea

in golden sand lying

salty wind on me.”

Now all the limbos are made into angels

Faces I kissed, lips I desired

And smiles and dances, the shadow of the dove,

Hand I caressed, and eyes I loved.

(But in limbos, what angels dwell

what illusions, shadowy wells

gave birth to the creatures I fear?

If I say my name will they hear?)

And in the sweetest agony my hands fell

Beneath the fingers of white seraphs

O, how could I forget the fiery eyes, the glee

On the red mouth of the girl by the sea?

My heart itched in pangs of the deepest bliss

And her hair I touched, and he brow I kissed

And her lips ( softer than the roses’ velvet)

Her lips in my ears whispered “did you forget?”

And in her smile I saw revenge.

We went to see the dawn, on the castle,

In the grey mist of the sea

The salty wind, from the tower, whistles

That the silver haired girl loves me.

And here she stands, alone on the high cliff

On the grey cliff by the sea

When the black waves rise high, I wonder, if

Her crystal clear laugh mocks me.

But her deep eyes glowed, like the golden tide

And the sun in the morning

But her hair danced, slow like in the moonlight

Beam saying “you are nothing.”

Because the girl looked like a god I cried

Salt tears bitter like the sea,

Because the girl said “pardon me”, I lied

Pushed her in infinity.

The magic angel on the long grey strand

Opens her red, broken wings

In the sea, the sky, the earth and the land

I threw my gone heart, crying.

The limbos repeat the mad echo, shrill

My invisible hands cannot stop my fall

The angels vanished, for me, no red wings

The fall never stops. And limbos laugh.

Limbos showed me towns below empty skies

Grey ashes abandoned, a tower, pride

And petrified hands reaching for a red sun

Eyes closed and thoughts in the earth sinking.

Limbos showed me the hell from under the sea

Wherein dream like monsters dwell

Engraved in high rocks and bleeding chimneys

Black tears flowing from beneath the earth.

And all of this in the spark of her eyes burnt,

Into this self-same, white face, turned

Laughing high, and mouth open in dreadful sights

And all of this in hideous orbs whirled.

O, tell me tour names, black limbos,

Pieces of paradise shattered,

What is this unknown tongue, what are those words

That you thrust in my ears and paint with my woes?

O, stop, for an eye-blink, nameless wonder,

Twisted scar of sand drowning in my dreams,

Come, rising tides, waves, take me in golden rings

Of streams, bitter salt and swirling water.

Look how the hurricane has lost my body in

Dark visions, and great doors, and half worlds, turning,

How my arms- her arms- in haste grab my throat,

How my mouth –her smile- tears air with its laugh.

O, wizard, ruined castle, Leviathan, Bahamut,

Earth open and burning

Trumpet’s loud hurling

Black snow falling from archangels’ wings

And cinders, acid rain, starless sky-

O, Armageddon and fiend vomiting caves

And people in plague and leprosy,

Worms gnawing upon the endless black town,

Atomic bombs-

And open the abyss, and open my face

And open the earth and the sea,

From the world torn apart,

She rises, high,

Higher than the clouds and the sun,

With the same red wings,

So high and white in nothingness,

Her hands reach for infinity,

(Half mad, I stumble)

And with her bright lips, hot rubies,

She eats the world.

In squalid downtown, the house of limbos shine

With a red neon in arabesque lines

In the blue mist, the man in purple coat says

“You will not see your friend again.

And he will be happy, your friend.”.

And behind him, in the blue fog,

A deep fog blue like the sea

Black shapes twist, and mumble and laugh:

The small man says they’re crazy.

And in the back alley, awkward corpses stumble

Though black streets, under low bridges

To infect with their sight the sinking city

Beneath the clouds, the town crumbles,

Along with the far away rhythm

Of their never ending pacing

(for everything in limbos is so far)

Their eyes are blind and blue

The deep blue of the sea

And their soul far away in limbos.

In here, like some said once,

You will only find them dead,

With forsaken dreams dripping through their hands.

In eternal sunset, a purple coat hide horizon

As slowly they give up

As slowly they let

The well of dark worlds their weak souls swallows.

And in the cerulean mist of limbos,

The town fonders.

#poetry #poetry on tumblr

1 note · View note

flatfootmonster · 4 years ago

Text

Running Past Empty

(read on A03 here)

Red seeps into my sweater. I didn’t even have time to use my newly honed anger because whoever ran into me, and spilt whatever this is, is long gone. I can’t even see the cup they must’ve been carrying. Whatever it is, it’s sticky. But it can wait. It has to wait. Voices and horns build to an overwhelming chorus behind me but it’s dampened by a fog that I summoned. I can’t focus on noise right now; I have to cross the road.

“Fuck. Fuck. Are you OK?” One of the voices is a panicked buzz in my ear—and too close. Much too close. I feel sick. “Jesus.” That sound hisses between teeth; steam escaping a kettle that boiled too long.

“I’m fine, I need to go,” my words are thick, stammered through numb lips. Sangwoo was just there. I can catch up with him. He’ll probably scoff over the state of my sweater, say that I’m a baby that needs looking after. I don’t mind when he teases though.

A shackle attaches itself to my arm. “You’ll stay there.” The buzzy-buzzy bee is persistent. I think I hate it.

There’s no time to look at whoever this fuck is that won’t listen, and I won’t reply either. I pull away with so much force his hand might’ve come clean off because his grip is still there as I leave him behind. When did I get so strong? I’m moving now, that’s all that matters. I’m moving fast and it’s OK. The bee follows though, like the memory of the hand, but the fog cuts in front of those sensations. I’m blocking them out because I have somewhere to be.

My feet beat the pavement, each step smooth and measured. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this coordinated before. It’s because of Sangwoo, I’m sure of it. He gave me things; I can shout now, and I can pull away, I can run. He never said it would hurt though. Pain jolts up my legs—a familiar hurt but this time it spreads, it bleeds from bone to vein to nerve ending. When I find him I’ll rest, and catch my breath, too. Lungs shouldn’t be so difficult to inflate. Maybe I need more exercise. That’s probably it. Does he play sports? I should know that.

Skidding to a jittery halt, I take a second to find my bearings. It’s no surprise the buildings that tower over my head are unrecognisable. They choke out the sky with dirty fingers of brick. I get disorientated a lot, you see. Plus, I was running towards the point I last saw him rather than pay attention to this road or that. Yet he seems to slip around the next corner when I think I’m gaining ground, the only thing I catch is a glimpse and even that is on the peripheral—right on the edge of the earth. Can’t he hear me? I’ve been shouting, haven’t I? Maybe this is a game.

“Did you call them?” Someone snaps those words out and they snatch my attention. I turn to find a mother looking down at a child. He’s holding skis. That seems odd but what business is it of mine what a stranger chooses to carry around? He used to carry me around a lot—Sangwoo did—and no one said anything about that. “Did you?” she presses, fear in place of impatience. What is she scared of? The shadows the buildings cast make their faces dark, features as indistinguishable and ruddy as the bricks. I can’t even see which direction their blackened eyes are pointing.

“Yes, yes. I did. I can’t make them get here any faster,” the kid replies but the voice belongs to the bee—it’s still stuck in my ear. When I blink their faces are pressed to mine, breath hot and sickening as their words decompose in their mouths. But there’s still no detail. The expanse where their features should be is pale, cold, and blank—a human-sized dead worm. I don’t want to look at them. My stomach squeals as my heart thuds once against my ribs in protest and they’re back in the shadows, merging with the buildings, voices melting and flowing into the cement that links brick to brick to brick. They are inconsequential—irrelevant to life; dead worms wriggling back into ashy soil.

If I stopped to catch my breath maybe they’d come back into focus, I'd find detail and explanation, and perhaps the buzzing would subside. I could maybe help with whoever it is they need to call—or mediate their disagreement. But I don’t want their faces so close to mine or their breath misting my vision—I have to go. Time is running out. It’s ticking away, it itches beneath my skin.

It’s a narrow alley next, I chose it simply because this way avoids streets and voices and worms and bees. There’s only one voice that I’m looking for—I’m desperate for it because I’m drowning and it’s a diving bell; I need it to get to where I’m going.

A man stands in a cobwebbed archway, phone pressed to his ear while glasses slide down a greasy, porous nose. He mutters, again and again, the same thing, “keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing.” His eyes don’t focus, they skitter this way and that like a spider, roaming the scratched wood behind him and the grey concrete beneath him. His face is grey, too, and when his eight-legged eyes find me the greyness spills over him. He’s a statue now and I’m glad because his gaze crept and crawled along my skin, his voice was needle scratching vinyl. A broken record. A broken, tired, useless record. Does he even understand what the fuck he’s saying? I know I don’t. It’s nonsense.

The narrow walls give way to a square but it’s empty, all I can hear is an alarm coming from somewhere—everywhere. It echoes from concrete planes the same way it bounces around the walls of my skull. Ignoring it is as simple and irritating as muting the agony throbbing in my veins. I still don’t recognise where I am. Slowing, the pain embeds itself deeply in bone, my marrow vibrates with every serrated inhale. Razors are in my lungs trying to cut their way out, climbing up my throat; the scores they gouge ooze with frigid sap.

There’s a stand. It was empty before, I’m sure of it, but this won’t be the first time I’m wrong. It’s a cake stand, too far away to make out details past that. There’s a girl, standing with her back to me. Something about her stance is familiar but memories are on the other side of the fog, I can reach them if I want yet I have no desire to. She’s fumbling around in her pockets frantically. Behind the counter, there’s a blank slate of a man and one red round cake sat between them. He holds a bag of white icing in his left hand.

“His name? What’s his name? Isn’t there any ID?”

“I couldn’t find any. There’s nothing,” her voice is the bees' voice as well. Too low to be authentically hers, it’s familiar but not in the same way her stance is. It should be odd, and it is, but I’m used to slipping and sliding around the wet tiled surfaces of reality. I’m used to things not making sense. And I’m used to being solely focussed on one thing so that it didn’t matter how reality is consumed by my abstract senses.

The man sighs, looks down at the cake before addressing it mournfully. “OK sweetheart, it’s going to be OK. Hold on,” he reassures the sticky, red surface beneath his bulbous nose. I suppose it’ll stay unnamed unless they’re going to write sweetheart on the top. Why doesn’t she know the name of the person she’s buying a cake for? And why is the bee still stuck in my fucking head?

My body jump starts, every atom eager to move. I lurch forward, transitioning into an easy run, eating up the ground in long strides. Between the waves of discomfort and crushing loneliness pressing down on my sternum, I feel fluid and capable. My form flows and slips, if I just trust in the magnetism pulling at me I’ll find the sensation of belonging that my atoms are begging for. I’ll slip down the right cracks when I find it; I’ll write the correct letters; I’ll outrun the concrete.

I need to catch up with him. There was something off—for days and days it was off. I did something, or he did, and I can’t unpick it. I don’t know where the stitching went wrong to unthread and rework. If I catch him I can, I’m sure. If he just listens…

I promised, you see. Wait. What did I promise? No—that’s a stupid question; It doesn’t matter if my brain cells can’t recall because my body seems to be making up for that ignorance.

A wall towers above the building in front of me. It doesn’t seem to be a part of its surroundings; there’s no adjoining structure or roof to give it relevance within this rigid environment. It’s a misfit—I can relate. There’s only one thing that marks it useful. Up top, an old advertisement is plastered down with crumbling, infertile glue. Its corners are peeling, weather-worn, dull, and barely discernible. But I can make out a pair of bulbous eyes in a green face—I see a squat animal. There’s my compass. I’ve found my bearings.

An alarm’s going off again. It’s different somehow, in the way one hymn is different from another but when you’re outside the church—when you’re skulking around in the graveyard—it simply sounds like another incessant drone. I cover my ears, it needs to be blocked out. It can’t dictate my route. But it’s loud. I don’t like it, and—just like the composting heat of the stranger’s breath and the stinging, grabbing bee—I don’t want it.

My skin prickles under the scratching hands of ticking minutes and seconds, counted out by a silent omnipotent force, pressing down on my sternum. My surface area needs to be peeled off because it burns. Everything is so fucking distracting. If my lungs were working like normal I’d sigh as all those things dull once more; the fog is back. It looks more like a veil now—cascading and shimmering in its divisive nature.

I round a corner where those spherical eyes were beckoning. This area is flattened. A building was demolished here and all that’s left is gravel, dust, and rocks. The debris forces its way into my mouth and fills my throat; I am the ground—desiccated and ruined. But I’m not sad because this is where I’m supposed to be, it’s how I’m supposed to be. I’m sure of it.

But how do I find belonging?

There’s a new sound, a beeping when my lazy heart thuds against my rib cage. Maybe it’s a timer about to go off, but if it does go off and I don’t find him, then what? I can’t let that happen. He’ll be gone. Gone forever. I’m losing time, running on empty.

My gaze devours the gravelly tarmac and the bare walls, desperate for the merest taste of a clue. It’s just dust, everywhere is dust and nothing—like me. Where do I go? There should be an opening somewhere, maybe on the floor, steps leading down. There’s nothing though. There’s only stillness but I swear I hear him, his voice saying my name, muffled like he’s hiding in this silly game we’re playing without rules. He’s the childish one.

The wall.

In the centre of the ruins, where the frog sits on top, there’s an old bricked up doorway. It’s the only entrance—or exit—and I can’t go back the way I came. I just can’t.

Bum.

There! It’s not a bee. It’s him. And now I know.

Logic slips away, just like that mother and child did, as I run at the wall and throw all my strength at it. The barrier punches right back, sending me flying away from the threshold. The floor hits, if there was any air inside of my body I’d be winded. Hesitation doesn’t weigh my mass down so I scramble to my feet and run towards that same spot. Those nondescript breeze-blocks will give way, they don’t know how strong I am now but I do. I’ll prove it.

My chest bursts again. The beeping stopped—the timer is done. In its place there are footfalls, bouncing from the concrete behind me, voices reverberate and buzz—a stampede of chaos that I’m trying with every last molecule to outrun. I never did understand it and now I don’t have time to learn. I don’t want to understand, not anymore.

“Hold on, sweetheart.”

Bum!

He’s here. He’s waiting for me.

“Stay with us.”

Maybe the statue came to life or the child became solid again, maybe it’s the girl with the cake or the man selling it. Maybe it’s all of them. I don’t want them, I don’t need any single one of them—

This time the explosion makes everything reverberate, the ground shudders beneath my feet as buildings sway in a sickening dance. Brick fingers are pushing into the sky, choking the sun. Cracks appear between the bricks and there’s light there—on the other side. I will do it, they won’t catch me. They can’t catch me.

The light says this is my last chance.

When I collide on the final assault my lungs tear themselves apart under the force of a silent scream. It’s been clawing at my throat, dying to be freed. It sets fire to salted rivulets the razors made before heat surges to a flashpoint. I’m turning inside-out. My burnt skin is splitting, the marrow is lava. The air in my ruined chest is ash.

I’m combusting but no concrete punch lands; the floor doesn’t hit my back;

Four, twenty-eight PM, the fifth of the eighth.

Water sloshes manically, slopping against a surface it found to break the cascade. It’s cold—the water is, and so is the air pouring down my throat. Haggard breaths send ripples across the crystalline surface, it’s the first thing to break through static-filled vision, pale and unblemished skin is the second. Everything is bright—pure.

“Bum?!”

Sight recovering, my gaze devours mint green tiles. I can’t grasp why it feels so desperate; notions and memories of panic and pain are slipping away like sand through my fingers. A squat green shape, two bulbous eyes staring at me from the sink, becomes the focal point as the black and white dots fade. It’s a ceramic frog, two toothbrushes and a half squeezed out tube of toothpaste sticking out from its back. It’s clean and simple, a faint smell of genuine pine lingers underneath the tang of generic shower products. Nothing is out of the ordinary, everything is exactly as it should be, so why does it feel like I’ve been pulled inside-out? Or maybe outside-in.

“Bum! Where are you?”

He’s calling—that’s all that matters. That fact didn’t change in whatever seismic shift occurred. “Sangwoo?” My voice trembles, lips and tongue feeling as unpractised as an infant’s, but it doesn’t hurt to speak. Why would it hurt?

If the water is cool, it’s nothing compared to the tide of relief that pulls me under, leaving my skin tingling and the fine hair on my body upright when he bursts into the bathroom. Why would I be relieved? He’s always here. We’re never far away from each other, people gossip over how inseparable we are.

His face. I can see his face. It’s close to mine as he kneels, breath warm on my pebbled skin but it doesn’t twist my gut. There was something nauseating in that dream.

“I’ve been calling you for… for I don’t know how long. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. It was silly to worry. But I’m sure I checked here…” he stops, bowing until his forehead is pressed to my shoulder and huffs a laugh. He shakes his head, the imbalance of understanding that we’re sharing is echoed in a weak laugh.

And, powerless to the forces that move me, I reach for him—we’re magnets, we can’t be anything else. “I promised,” the sentiment tastes familiar, spawned from the crumb of a memory that slips beyond reason. What did I promise? Worry ebbs away and nerves soften because he feels right: skin clear, hair soft, and his heartbeat is so strong—like it usually is, like the rest of him. But maybe the vehemence in his grip says he understands the words, that somehow, in the hangover of an abstract dreamscape, it made sense to him. If anyone was going to understand the things I say that I don’t even comprehend it would be him. It’s always been him.

“I think maybe it was a bad dream,” he sighs.

“Me too. Maybe we were stuck in a nightmare together.”

He looks up, the troubled tightness in his face melting away and leaving only easy, weather-worn memories in their place. “Like when we were kids?”

Humming, I stroke through his hair. I’ve sat here long enough for my fingertips to wrinkle. The darkness seems vague, another era—another universe entirely. Yet, at the same time, it lingers over my shoulder, hidden only by a veil. The urge to look behind is dwindling, just like any solid dream fragments I could share. What does it matter anyway? “I think I spilt something on myself but—” I stop and frown at the floor. Apart from the small puddles of water, it’s clear. “I don’t know where my clothes are.”

His mirth turns rueful. “Probably kicked them off somewhere that I’ll find later. Cmon, the dryer just stopped, you can put something fresh on.”

I try to sit but my muscles are infantile, too. “Whatever that dream was, it zapped my energy,” I sigh. Even my lungs are exhausted.

He shakes his head, fingers dipping into the tub. “It’s cold. How long have you been sitting here?” he tsks the question to a close. We look after each other, it’s just what we do. “You’re gonna freeze if you stay here any longer—and it’s dangerous to sleep in the bath,” he tuts again as one arm slides around my shoulders, the other beneath my knees.

I’m not given time to disagree but I try anyway. “You don’t have to—“

“Shush. You’ve done this enough times for me—well, for the five minutes you were bigger than me anyway.” He grins down while plucking my mass from the water with casual ease. Contrary to my words, I soften against him. We have different strengths that we lend each other, you see. It’s always been that way. I know that. I remember.

The journey is a quiet ceremony; we migrate from one room to another before I’m eased into a kitchen chair, wrapped in a fluffy, white towel. The clothes are still warm, Sangwoo stays centred and focused as he helps me dress. I’m quite capable of doing it myself, just like I could have walked here on my own two feet, but he’s persistent. There is always a dire plea in his eyes when he silently lends his hands to whatever task needs doing, and it’s fulfilled with a gentle touch and stern focus. It feels like repentance or supplication, and so earnest that I can never fight it.

He’s always been determined, since the day we first met. Gripping tight to my sleeve, Sangwoo wailed until my mum came to investigate and forged an alliance with his mum. The rest is history. He can’t possibly remember that day but that doesn’t stop him from swearing otherwise—says he knew we were soulmates and that it was a matter of life or death to hold on with stubby, sticky fingers. After all this time I’m schooled to the silly, sweet things he says, letting them be without anything more than a grin and a shake of my head. Yet there’s something shiny about that memory. It shimmers in the ancient light of a summer evening and, for whatever reason, I forgot about its existence; slept too long and lost track of identity and time and place. Seeing it there, reflecting true warmth, drapes a comfort blanket over my consciousness; I want to bask in our history.

Those same fingers that gripped my sleeve back then now drag a sock up my calf, but they possess a few decades of knowledge beneath their fingerprints—they are no long stubby or sticky but calm, attentive, and skilled. He smoothes the wool flat and tugs at the seam over my toes to make sure it sits perfectly.

“Do you wanna listen to something?” His movements effortless, Sangwoo turns to the fridge and items are taken out and placed on the countertop: eggs, milk, butter, a bar of chocolate—flour and sugar joins them from the cupboard. I’m transfixed by every last detail and action, every syllable that falls from his lips without it being translated within the confines of my upside-down skull. My body is righting myself and so I’m simply happy to sit here, snug in warm, fresh clothes and absorb. “Maybe the tape you made last week, or—I don’t know. Which one is your favourite today?” There’s a note in his words that proclaims years of experience when it comes to my quickly evolving, and perhaps fickle, favourites. And, of course, there would be.

There’s no radio up here, we’re too far out to get signal, and so when we go to the lake to fish or swim we take the old cassette radio with us. A blank tape will be ready in the cassette slot to record songs as they’re aired. We have a kitchen drawer full of compilations, Sangwoo’s precise scrawl can be found on the case of each to note the date and song list. His methodical ideology doesn’t just stop at me, there’s notebook after notebook of days gone by filling shelves around this small home. Moments are recorded in detail as if to prove our existence in this world; we are here in this universe and this story will be left. It never fails to cast a spell of enchantment over everything.

“Bum?” Feet planted before mine and a crease between his brows, he’s observing me. “You’re spacing out,” he mutters before pressings a palm to my forehead, “but you don’t have a fever. Do you need some fresh air?”

I think he’s right. Air sounds good. I like the air where we live—it tastes freshly baked as opposed to the staleness lingering everywhere else in the world. “OK.” He weighs me up with his measuring gaze when I get to my feet but there’s no reason to worry, strength is restoring itself and even the memory of pain is unintelligible now. “I’m OK.”

“I’ll bring you some tea.” With that, he’s back to whatever it is that’s being conjured, and I’m trusted to get on with my own job—as simple as it is. A kettle full of water is placed on the stove while I retrace the path he made carrying me in his arms.

Just past the bathroom is the front door. I say door but it’s mostly window; two large panels that make up top and bottom of the portal are crystal clear. It’s flanked by massive windows, too, because why wouldn’t it be that way up here? Where a panelled wall is required you have it, but if there’s any chance to capture a living portrait you do just that.

Wood clanks against wood, the door swings shut as I venture out onto the porch. That sensation of experiencing something for the first time settles again, like a dewy web, yet it’s not discomforting. It doesn’t spark curiosity either because I’ve known since we came here that I’ll never get tired of the stretch of cosmos that wraps itself around these stone walls. It stretches this way and that. Green trees that sway in the breeze, dancing to a silent tune, build behind the house, rising to lofty peaks. There’s a handful of hiking routes that wind their way up there. Before me, the pines subside and flow towards the lake. The body of water below glints and shimmers; a mesmerising world of fluid secrets. The amber-blue sky stretches on forever, when the sun sets its understudy arrives and millions of diamonds provide a twilit reverie. Every day is like the first, and at the same time utterly unique. The secrets whispered are always slightly different, the shapes the stars make are always evolving.

This place might not seem much to some, or most for that matter, but it’s everything to me. Eyebrows tend to rise when people know we live together out here, like a couple of hermits, but we’re beyond caring about the thoughts or assumptions they paint. There were times we tried to be apart, building independent lives, but things would spiral into chaos and confusion; bad things ultimately happened. It was never worth the discomfort of trying to squeeze ourselves into empty slots in a puzzle when we never came from the same box in the first place. We found this peace right here, our belonging, and it really doesn’t matter what the world outside thinks.

Besides, we’re not hurting anyone.

“Here.” I didn’t hear the door open and neither do I flinch with his apparition.

My gaze shifts from lush, green leaves to earthy, rich irises. The pleasure found there is fertile enough to coax a smile. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, and why shouldn’t it be? The mug offered is steaming—chamomile by the smell of it, probably with a little too much honey.

“Thank you.” It’s sighed while I inhale the scent and let it wrap around me along with every other element within reach that’s whole and perfect.

“And there’s that smile,” he coos the gentle tease. I’ve always loved the way he teases. His humour is mildly provocative but it soothes instead of stinging, the worst side effect being blushes. It makes up for my quiet demeanour and—if anything—he preens under the laughter that always comes easily from his audience of one. Sometimes my rare sarcasm trips him up, too—it’s served extremely dry. I have to admit a hunger in my gut is fed when his knees buckle under unforeseen hysterics. “You look much better,” he adds, expression mirroring the one he just shone a spotlight on.

“I feel much better.” To prove the point to myself, my toes wiggle within their thick, woollen confines. Everything feels as it should again—better than it should. Energy coils itself deep in muscle and bone, eager to spring into action. Reaching out, I sate that desire. My fingers brush against his cheek while a pinprick of panic plucks at my imagination over what I’ll find. There was no need to worry, there’s nothing other than him. Past the stubble, he’s warm and smooth—soft even. Most wouldn’t attach that adjective to Sangwoo but, then again, no one knows him as I do.

He sighs, his eyes close, his head tilts into my touch. Yes, he is soft.

“I’m glad.” Hand finding mine, Sangwoo’s grip weaves around my fingers until they are entwined with his. There’s a ring he wears, a gift from me. It’s never been removed no matter what graft is demanded. There should be no surprise in seeing it where it belongs. “If you stay out here too long you might catch a cold.” To highlight the gently presented advice, and with an added chuckle, he ruffles my damp hair. “At least get dry first if you want to take a walk.” A light kiss is pressed to my forehead; a full stop for his nurturing thought. I bookmark the moment, recording every last atom vibrating around and within. I’ll return to this page—over and over and over. I just know it. “I have a cake to make,” he adds, taking a step back. A new spark of enticement kindles in his gaze, hoping that he’ll provoke some curiosity—or at the least hunger.

Where I know him well, he matches that—step for step, word for word, breath for breath.

“Cake? What kind of cake?” I can’t hide the eager giddiness in my voice, I wouldn’t attempt to either.

“Chocolate.”

My stomach rumbles on cue. “What’s the occasion?” Honestly, I don’t care, I’m already fantasising about the dessert induced coma I’ll fall into later, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Sangwoo is a magician in many things and baking is one of them.

A casual shrug is offered as a response before words follow. “It just felt like a cake kinda day.” Taking another step backwards, he’s halfway over the threshold. “If you’re around in about twenty minutes there’ll be a bowl and spoon to lick clean.” There’s another grin, full of mischief, and eyebrows that quirk before he disappears back into the warmth of our home.

I’m caught up in the sweetest quandary. My legs long to pace earth and my fingers ache to touch pine, but the cosmos isn’t going anywhere right now… whereas that bowl and spoon might.

His argument is compelling; Sangwoo knows my weaknesses. But we’ve never truly needed anything to persuade ourselves or convince the other. Nothing binds us here aside from free will, shone and reflected back in equal measures. He is me and I am him. We can’t breathe alone.

#killing stalking #fanfic #post canon #yoon bum #sangwoo

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porcileorg · 4 years ago

Text

Sad Mondays #11

Author: Magda Wisniowska – December, 2020.

But the schizophrenic does not live in familial categories, he wanders among world-wide and cosmic categories … (Deleuze, “The Procedure” in “Essays Critical and Clinical,” 17)

Louis Wolfson writes in a language I do not understand. His “Le Schizo et les Langues” is written in French, but not the kind of French a beginner like me is liable to grasp, especially as it is widely acknowledged that even those far more proficient than me find the task daunting. He writes about his own experiences with language — but as someone who is a diagnosed schizophrenic, his illness manifests itself in his use of language, and is impersonal, written in the third person, and in the past conditional tense. I, on the other hand, am not someone who has had to deal with this kind of illness, whether on a personal or on an academic level. It is not something I can, in any way, relate to. Nevertheless, this schizophrenic language I cannot grasp, is what shapes Deleuze and Guattari’s thinking of the “becomings-molecular” in a “Thousand Plateaus” (272-5). Like Beckett or Artaud, Wolfson is deemed to be one of the privileged few who walks among the cosmic categories. If “in his third and final state” the protagonist of Beckett’s “Murphy” “has become an indiscernible atom” (Deleuze, “The Exhausted” in “Essays Critical and Clinical,” 170) and if in Artaud “combat makes us pass from wounding letter to breaths and from sick organs to cosmic body” (“The Procedure,” 16), then Wolfson seizes “particles,” bringing them “into proximity” in “the fog and mist that depend on a molecular zone, a corpuscular space” (“Thousand Plateaus,” 273).

According to Deleuze, writing in his preface for “Le Schizo et les Langues” (and found in revised form in “Essays Critical and Clinical”), what Wolfson has, is a “procedure” (7-20). Having been subject, at the behest of his mother, to brutal medical treatment for his schizophrenia (including electroshock and insulin shock therapies as well as prolonged stays at psychiatric institutions), Wolfson developed a profound disgust of his “mother tongue” of English. He refused to write it, to speak it, or even to hear it. Instead, he became a kind of instant, real-time translator, translating anything he encountered as being English into one of his four foreign languages: French, German, Russian, or Hebrew. But this does not mean that Wolfson spoke French or German in his everyday life as a consequence. His procedure consisted of taking an original English word and looking for a foreign equivalent, one that not only has the same meaning, but also has the same phoneme or sound. This is how Wolfson describes it, referring to himself in the third person,

Nevertheless, since it was hardly possible not to listen to his mother tongue at all, he tried to develop ways to convert words almost instantly (especially those he found most troublesome) into foreign words each time, after they had penetrated his consciousness despite his efforts not to perceive them. So that he could somehow imagine that he was not being spoken to in that damned tongue, his mother tongue, English. (trans. Heller-Roazen in “Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language,” 180)

And this is the example given by Deleuze,

Where? will be translated as Wo? Hier? au? ici?, or better yet, as Woher. Tree will produce Tere, which phonetically becomes Dere and leads to the Russian Derevo. Thus, an ordinary maternal sentence will be analyzed in terms of its phonetic elements and movements so that it can be converted into a sentence, in one or more foreign languages, which is similar to it in sound and meaning. (“The Procedure,” 7-8)

The result is a language that sounds similar to English, that has the same meaning that the English original has, but which is not English, only a disordered combination of different languages.

Deleuze links Wolfson’s approach to language with his equally difficult and dysfunctional relationship to food. As a schizophrenic Wolfson also suffered from anorexia. Terrified of accidentally ingesting larvae, worms, or eggs with his meals, he periodically starved himself before gorging on tins of food, avoiding reading their English labels by focussing on the food’s chemical formula. This he would either repeat while eating or again, translate into foreign words. For Deleuze, there is an equivalence between the “intolerable maternal word” and the “spoiled foods,” between the “foreign word” and “the atomic formula,” which can be expressed mathematically as the equation,

maternal words / foreign languages = food / molecular structures = life / knowledge (ibid., 14-5)

Molecularity in the above, concerns the denominator of this equation, its foreign languages, molecular structures — its knowledge. To produce his "new phonetic language” that opposes “maternal words,” Wolfson has to unite every foreign language in one continuous and fluid totality. And similarly, to produce the “chain of atoms” he opposes to rotten food, he has to unite every atomic combination in a “total formula” of a periodic table (ibid., 16) , or the complete “knowledge of molecular biology” (ibid.,14). To wander among the cosmic categories is to move away from the familial figures of the mother and father, and to recognise that if the mother is language, then the father is a foreignness, consisting of all the words I do not know and all the atoms that enter my body. Wolfson’s is a language that I do not understand, because it is not language we are dealing with here. It is the foreignness of language, comprising every element of every single language, called upon in the schizophrenic act of translation. This is why Deleuze ends by writing,

Rather, the story concerns what is "impossible" in language, and thus what belongs to language alone: its outside. It is made possible only by means of a procedure, which testifies to madness. (ibid.,19)

[In a “Thousand Plateaus” Deleuze and Guattari describe becoming as the non-analogous process of extracting particles establishing a relation of movement closest to what one is becoming (see Sad Mondays 10). The zone of “proximity” that is drawn, is more accurately described in mathematical terms as a “neighbourhood,” a set of defined points around another point. The schizophrenic establishes such a zone when he translates the maternal language into foreign words with similar sounds and meanings; the anorexic, when he rushes to the fridge and gorges on its contents. In both cases, particles are seized: verbal particles of the maternal language that are no longer part of that language, becoming foreign; food particles that are no longer part of any specific foodstuff. In seizing particles the schizophrenic forces a proximity between the two, between maternal language and the foreign, between food and chemical formula. Proximity marks a belonging to the same molecule.]

#magdawisniowska #sad mondays #loiuswolfson #theprocedure #deleuze #deleuzeandguattari #thousandplateaus #essayscriticalandclinical #schizophrenia #language #translation #anorexia #becomingmoecular #artaud #beckett

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sacredandstrange · 5 years ago

Audio

Dark love is a stranger waving hello

A woman in ermine braving the snow

A crystal ball teardrop on a trembling lash

A tendril of incense smelling of ash

Bloody snakebite Cernunnos thistle sun thistle moon

Brittle whispers at midnight attic rat tricks at noon

Darkness creeps while you’re sleeping, seeping into your skin

Baptizing your heartbeat in original sin

Dark love is a tongue stretching out of the void

New stars are born, dead suns are destroyed

Its tip finds your spirit in Modesto, CA

Black apple stain face starfish uzi all day

The night licks your shadow, time dines on your pride

Pulls on your who-ness and pulls you inside

Out like the lining of a pink velvet glove

Mannequins cry as your eyes fill with love

Dark love is a hand turning over an ace

A crackerjack halo, planets grinding in space

A splash of black ink on white porcelain tiles

The shimmering skin of newborn reptiles

Ram horns are crushed as they rush in to kiss

The hem of an angel half hidden in mist

When you stroke dark love your soul starts to shine

A scene more serene than the sun in the pines

Dark love is a freeway to the absolute

The square root of evil, the forbidden truth’s fruit

The blasphemous moan of a back alley seer

Tapping the opposite side of your mirror

His sudden appearance supplies quite a shock

Serving to unnerve like a Halloween knock

When you stare into darkness your lust is reborn

It drips from the tip of a unicorn’s horn

Dark love is the camera that captures the ghost

The raging tsunami that erases the coast

A firefly glimpsed by a girl from the West

A tiny white hand in a doll maker’s chest

A dangling scarecrow in love with the moon

A wispy white sun that rises too soon

When you listen to darkness your soul starts to dance

It raves in the grave in a hollow eyed trance

Dark love is a footprint left draped on the stairs

A glassy eyed goon who mumbles and stares

The widening crack in a mockingbird’s egg

The shameful trickle that runs down your leg

The syncopated switch of a Minotaur’s tail

The succulent ruckus when wizards prevail

When you clutch at dark love you touch the divine

And wallow in filth like the Devil’s own swine

Dark love is the mole on a celluloid face

A mechanized dancer with music box grace

A golden key turns the pedestrian’s head

As you strut down the street decorated in red

Big icy goo burn flaming ravens below

Beyond blood beyond cuckoo beyond goodbye hello

When you get lost in darkness, you find your true name

And savor the flavor of the ebony flame

Dark love is a scarab that clicks as it crawls

Through the sanctified stillness that breathes between walls

A prism speaks forth its eternal black prayer

A dragon drags daylight back to its lair

Dark love evil rebus eat a slice edelweiss

Razzmatazz ransom black avalanches black ice

When you fall prey to dark love you give vent to a sigh

And let warm hands caress you on the day that you die

Dark love is an expert at evoking your screams

Ghoulie zigzag vagina spider viking your dreams

They fly hurry scurry from your tremulous throat

Blot out the sky like butterflies in revolt

Your delectable sanity rolls away like a spool

Lunacy, goonacy, the dark love of fools

An art deco echo turns your gecko to dust

As God and his angels hang their heads in disgust

Dark love is a doorway as slim as a slit

A Janus-faced actor reading from a ripped script

The curtain comes down at twilight’s last glow

A killer is laughing in the next to last row

Dark love sleazy blow kiss rubber raindrop at night

Kojak’s new hairdo what’s wrong is what’s right

You dream of darkness as day starts to fade

And replaces your faces with a ubiquitous shade

Dark love is a magnet that pulls down the sky

Bends rainbows to snapping and blinds the mind’s eye

It twists in its grip the albino’s pale tail

Leaving welts on its pelt that can be read in Braille

Cunt swollen dark love stretches bets on a horn

Fly maggot pilots for freedom phantom steel in a storm

When you dine on dark love your fangs start to grow

With each flash of your teeth the blood starts to flow

Dark love has no edges, it won’t be tied down

It drifts past your window, a starry-eyed clown

With lips the color of mud and teeth made of glass

It chews on your shoes, leaves a crack in your ass

Bend over forever with your feet wrapped in twine

Chisel grease faster than the apostle of wine

When you smell dark love your nose starts to twitch

And you yearn for the burn of a buttonhole stitch

Dark love is a wire spitting out sparks

A whipping desire that leaves you covered in marks

Bleeding and pleading, not for mercy, but more

Your insatiable craving leaves a stain on the floor

You moon bathing worm, pucker your lips

Make your mouth as round as a solar eclipse

Keep your eyes peeled to behold the black sun

The Devil is clever but God won’t be outdone

Dark love is a wheel that sings as it turns

A black ray of sunshine that soothes as it burns

A slap on the ass, a flash in the pan

Red tape in the shape of the Boogie Man’s hand

When dark love decays its fruit grows more sweet

Its pure gold to behold and sheer heaven to eat

It oozes from bruises and runs down your jaw

Filling your hollows with swallows and your dog bowl with awe

Dark love is the gap in a carnival tent

You wanted a ticket but your money was spent

On filth and chaos and darkness and lust

You ate so much pudding your belly might bust

And give birth to a brightly painted pinata

A statue of Pan that sings like Sinatra

With flames jumping out of his eyes, ears, and nose

As for what the Devil he’s up to, God only knows

Dark love turns you sideways, hides you in air

A stratum of atoms lifts up your hair

Lifts up your spirits, pulls down your skirt

Holds your frail hand as you squat in the dirt

Somewhere your tombstone is uprooted by rain

Your eyes float in a forest, your pain stains the grain

When you surrender to darkness you conquer your fears

And shake hands with the man who manufactures your tears

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necros-writings · 6 years ago

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My Characters, Alive Ep. 1

"Traveling through the doors is like walking down a street where every block is a new city: you'll get where you're going, but sometimes it feels like forever and you'll be real tired by the end."

"Ok, so how do you get to really far away universes?" Missy hadn't really expected this impromptu lesson in traveling to different dimensions, but it was more interesting than her lock-picking studies.

"We take it in stages, often with a day or so between uses. Of course, there are ways to travel long dimensional distances without getting tired, but doors are far more convenient."

"Wait, what ways? Besides the doors, what other ways are there?"

John looked up from where he was working on his own lock, which clicked open before he even finished his next sentence. "Well, there are mirrors, for one, but they're temperamental. It requires two mirrors facing each other with enough room to see the hallway they make. And a strong electrical charge. Very strong. Part of why we use doors instead, since that amount of electricity can be dangerous. And then there's the sharding."

"The what?" Missy wasn't entirely certain that he hadn't just used older slang for a certain bathroom activity or not. Honestly, knowing John, he probably had.

"Sharding. It happens on occasion. If one of the mirrors should crack while you're in transit, parts of you get scattered across multiple dimensions, often in the shape of shards of glass, hence the name. Of course, sharding has also been known to happen spontaneously. Then, of course, there are the unpleasant things that reside in mirrors, so they aren't used very often."

Missy, despite having only known John for a couple months, had long ago learned not to ask what this man deemed unpleasant. So she went with the safer question, "Alright, but there's something other than mirrors and doors, right?"

"Of course there are. Let's see...one I haven't used, but have known to work for the more uh...daring immortals are black holes."

"Black holes? No way, I thought...that everything gets all stretched out and compressed and stuff inside a black hole."

"Well, all that hardly matters if you can't die, so a couple true immortals use black holes on occasion."

"Crazy..."

John nodded his head, grabbing another lock and popping it open disappointingly fast, judging by the noise he made. "Being unable to die and living forever tend to impair your judgment a little." He stretched as he considered the next possibility. He settled back in his seat, adjusted his mask, and grabbed yet another lock, this one sufficiently difficult. "I only mention this one because myself and Mason tend to use it, less so now, but still. The last option I really know of would be the Paths."

"The Paths?"

"Mmhmmm. It's basically like....a crawlspace that connects all dimensions together. The stitching in the fabric of space and time, as it were. Silly generalization, by the way, 'fabric of space and time', it's more like a layered quilt of tons upon tons of clashing, but still similar looking patterns."

"Right. Quilt."

"Exactly. But the Paths. Right, the Paths are...underneath and between everything that makes up reality. They go to places that even the doors can’t lead, but it's dangerous. First you have to pay a small price to get in. Then comes the hard part: traveling the Paths. They take you exactly where you want to go, but they don't want you to leave."

"Hold on, you make it sound like the Paths are alive."

"Well, they are. We're talking about what is basically the nervous system of the Dimensional Spiral. Or maybe the skeletal structure. Probably the skeletal structure, now that I think about it."

"John, focus."

"I am focusing! It's a very important distinction!"

"Ok ok, let's just say the Paths are bones or whatever."

"Maybe. Either way," he said, waving his hand in dismal, "the Paths are alive. And dangerous. The price to enter is so very small, compared to the price of being on them."

"What do you mean? What's so bad about them?"

"The Paths don't like giving up its travelers. It likes to try and worm its way into your head, tell you not to leave, to wander it forever."

"That...doesn't sound fun."

"It wouldn't be. The Paths corrupt those unfortunate enough to get trapped. Turns them into things that...well, best not even named. Most of the time though, you can walk past them. Just...don't touch them."

"Why not?"

"Well...best way to explain it is this: the Paths are so named because they are just that, literal pathways, bordered by uh...void, I guess?"

"You guess? You don't guess."

"No, I try not to. But I'm not really sure what's beyond the borders. Hitting one of them is incredibly painful and seems to eat away at the very base of you, you know?"

"What, like your atoms and things?"

"Yeah," John nodded, "exactly. Your famous scientist, Einstein, I think, once said that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. This is....inaccurate, if only in regards to the Paths. Everywhere else this rule applies, but on the Paths....the borders are the only thing I've ever encountered that can actually destroy matter. All matter."

"But....what about the atoms? Wouldn't destroying then cause like...a big boom?"

John shook his head and turned fully to face her more, locks and lockpicks long abandoned. "You're thinking about it in turns of transformation. Matter can become energy, as like when you split an atom. But the borders...they literally destroy it. Atoms can't turn into energy if they simply don't exist."

"Wait wait, no, that's not how that works! It would...it would have to be instant! And it would have to 'destroy' any energy made in the process!"

"Exactly. The Paths don't make sense. It hasn't since it was created and it won't until the end of everything. I've just accepted it as it is and avoided it where I can."

"I...guess that makes sense."

John nodded then leaned over so he could tap the lock she'd set aside long ago. "Now, get back to your studies. Can't have my apprentice unable to pick locks, now can I?"

Missy huffed and picked the lock back up and set to work on it once again. "At least the stuff about the Paths was interesting..." She grumbled. John just laughed.

@stephrawlingwrites , @parttimewriter-fulltimefangirl , @gotemotrash

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#necro's writings #short story #this was supposed to go up sooner #but my browser is having problems

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neverendinglanternstory-blog · 6 years ago

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Episode #1

The Never Ending Story – Lantern contributions, June-July 2018 I thought to myself Come on! Pick one! It doesn’t work if you don’t pick one and so I...

Was in his room walking upside down thinking of which homework to do…

Ahh! Maths I yelled, as I opened the book everything flew off the page +, _, all the symbols and words

Ahh! I screamed as I was sucked into the book. Three days later I woke up in another world…

Goblins, Ghouls, everything horrific was dancing around. It was horrible…

It was more than horrible, it was bootiful.

My stomach clenched in anticipation as I got ready to run from the fairytale-like creatures.

Hands sweating, mouth clasped tightly closed and my stomach spinning in never-ending circles I plucked up the courage to run. I took one last glance at my hellish surroundings wondering what the heck I was going to do after a deep growl rang in my ears, and with that I bolted.

Running as slow as I could I slapped my friend and brother.

Before I took one last peek at the creature’s jagged teeth that blended with it’s drool as it looked at it’s next meal, which was this creature

Or a cat! A cursed black cat. A creature that never wants to be seen!! The the black cat with the jagged teeth scrambled up the tree and flew across to the next one when it saw

A huge hippopotamaus sitting on the branch crying.

Because he was just told that he wasn’t a member of the library

His crying grew louder and he started to hiccup.

He hiccupped so loud that he fell off the branch taking the black (that is cursed) with him

Get off me pheasant cried the cat, squashed beneath the hippo

Roar It looked at both of them and laughed, then out of the bushes came a peacock.

My name is Geoff and I am the protector of the couch potato. King insect and said I rule all of what you see.

I can send commands to you and you can obey them. If not, you will be captured and you will be out of town forever…and ever ever ever.

Terrace being a gemini changed his mind and decided that they would only live because they wanted Macca’s…yum.

I have to leave town for a few days instead of forever. So they went on a boat to full an island of food where everything was half in size, “oh no” and made friends (not) with the full size animals.

Suddenly a double headed dragon appeared and swallowed the people, much to their horror. Terrace having hear the cries of the half sized people, commanded his greatest warrior Michael to appear and slay the beast.

However, Michael needed help so he summoned Poppy the peacock, Terrace’s sister to distract the monster.

As one of the heads descends to eat Poppy, Michael plunges his spear into the dragon’s chest. And she won the battle and would rule their world and would takeover the world. He couldn’t even go back , so he went to his world and his people were aliens and he tried but had to pass a battle, and he won so the king was gone. And became one of the people he tried battling, but he never won and kept on trying to win until he saw someone strong that could rule the world. So he really won and then the king’s eyes blowed and got so unkind. And they banished himforever…until something big and trust me he never seen a big coming towards him. He tried to stay calm but no and it was furry and made it a sound like this grrrl the men ran as fast until he fell. He yelled

And the monster nearly caught him but he stood and ran so fast he ran into a tree…

All out of nowhere came another man and saved him. He said “hey man, take hold of my hand” and he did and then

He got free and lived in the wild for the rest of his life. Then ? and set free

Then he saw a purple duck called Joanne. “quack, quack, quack quack quack” said the duck. The king was scared of ducks, especially purple ducks called Joanne.

“Quack quack quack, “ said Joanne again.

The king noticed something – the duck was turning into a potato. The king started hitting the duck with chopsticks. The king is a bully..

“How dare you Quack. I am the duck and you shall be punished”The the duck pulled out his own chopsticks. “By the power of chickens, I banish thee to the realm of chopsticks and sushi”

Then the duck….

Was so happy that she went for a lovely walk along the river and went for a swim and there was this pray and it was a hungry shark. “Oh no” she screamed “help me please, I beg you!” so she screamed so loud her voice was hardly gone “please I need some help

”I need my chopsticks and meat, so she went out of the water and got them. But they were shaped. One ran away in the opposite direction. I started to chase that person, but he or she was gone. I kept running in hope of finding them, but had no luck.

Then suddenly out of the blue, I heard a bush rustle, and saw a brown hat. Bird! He was scratching in the dirt looking for brown squiggling worms to eat. He realised the bird was stuck so the boy helped by digging out the dirt around the bird.

Before the bird was completely free, Whoosh! It catapulted into the sky a trail of fire burning bright behind it.But on the other side of the river an inhumane creature called The White Sister lay upon the soft pale sand, a bed of sea foam covering herself from toe to chin. But in the distance, was a man with golden wings like a fire bird. The white sister was astonished to see him approach the river and dip his wings into the salt water. White sister asked the man his wings ? tattered fabric “why are you so White?”

Well, as you have asked there is a story to my colour, she explained to him. I was always like this. I was once not human in the time of the green and roman way. My father worked miracles and to protect me from Greek soliders he made me into a ?, and that is why I am white.

He said to me that my colour will fade but may never end. Goodbye now, he said. (by the way, he liked flowers)

That flowers are his life. He needs flowers to live or he will die. One incredible day in his garden, lots of lovely flowers appeared. He was amazed and he even wondered how they got there.

I know, I will ask the people in the town. He asked everyone he knew, but no one knew anything about the flowers. Luckily, dead Fred the zombie came to save the day.

Dead Fred said Are you looking for a flower bed?

Then a living chicken came and said “no” and a goose came and said “yes”.

Then the goose went to sleep.

Then the eggs hatched and they all lived happily ever after. Not quite, said Dead Fred

We still need some soil and water and love to make …

Plants for gardens so animals can live there so they don’t die.

We live in an endless ?? but still have no love. We live in the city of love, but there is no love to be found. We live in a world of peace but haven’t heard of the meaning of peace, this world has no love and all we have is negativity.

Once there was a girl named Rebecca. She loves her family and she wished for a cute loving adorable dog, but Christmas she didn’t get that. She was very disappointed. She started to cry then she heard a bark. She looked everywhere and didn’t find it then she looked in her room she was so excited she didn’t find one dog, she found two.

She said “this is amazing” her mum and dad rushed in to see what was wrong and found her on the floor cuddled up with them. She loves Christmas ???

There was a bat who lived in a very dark cave, and enjoyed his life. Until some humans came and destroyed his cave. He had to move to another cave, but it was too bright, and it turned out great. He then found a mate and had kids and had a happy life.

Atoms and facts.

The regular atoms have 8 electrons, 8 neutrons and 8 protons. Scientists have used carbon to determine how old a baby mammoth was. She was 480000 years old!

The Marianer is the largest trench in the world, sub marines have not een to the bottom. It is too narrow and steep. It is still a mystery as to what is down the bottom.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 4 Review: Treehouse of Horror XXXI

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 4

Halloween is the special time for many series, giving them the chance to throw logic and canon out the window to plumb the fantastic for fearful flights. But The Simpsons season 32, episode 4, “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” opens with the scariest of all fantasias: Reality.

The episode begins a short while after Halloween on what looks to be the most frightening day in recent memory, the upcoming election between Trump/Putin and Someone/Anyone. The sequence includes a list of reasons to vote against Trump (Made it okay to shoot hibernating bears, put children in cages, called Mexicans rapists, imitated disabled reporter, looks lousy in a tennis outfit, can’t get wife to hold hands, called third world countries **** holes, called Tim Cook ‘Tim Apple’ …). Each more surrealistically real than the last. The list is long, so long you can’t make them all out during the crawl. They are detailed, amazing, includes one that is made up, and thorough. Homer’s commentary is priceless. But so are the rest of the political barbs in the pre-segment, such as when a heavily medicated octogenarian tells a potential voter he needs two forms of ID. “Twelve if you’re a Democrat.”

The opening segment isn’t all blatant politicking. Some of it is strictly silly. Homer understands and knows where he stands on all the judges and propositions, but when it comes to the presidency, he can’t pick. It’s not like he has to choose between beer, pretzels and donuts. Of course, the dire predictions of doom are slightly exaggerated in the animated, and Halloween-infused, world of “Treehouse of Horrors,” but it’s probably scarier than the entire season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond. The rest of the episode plays it for laughs.

Toy Gory

The first segment is a parody of the children’s classic Toy Story. Marge is a loving mom, giving Bart his last moments with his toys before he gives them away to charity. But we learn from the cleverly worded and Disney-sonic opening song this is not a kid who plays well with others, breathing or plastic. “You put a dent in me, you broke my head in three,” a sorrowful and scornful Randy Newman knockoff sings in a throaty nasal. Bart is apparently the rotten kid next door in this tale. Is it any wonder, though? His new Radioactive Man action figure comes with real radioactivity. The Simpsons likes to play with the after effects of atomic energy. The box warns about keeping the toy away from users’ scrotums, Abe thinks he left his in his other pants and Homer’s had a long history with the atomic effect.

Speaking of effects, the imagination captures the 1995-era computer-animated look and feel of Toy Story with subversive intent. Krusty the Clown, Bart’s most beloved toy one imagines, is the Woody in this. He is also the one who fosters dissent and leads the revolution. Ultimately, Bart becomes the perfect toy owner, but it’s not exactly a happy ending. Dr. Hibbert’s X-ray of Bart comes straight out of the Operation game. Hibbert explains Bart’s bones are Tinker toys. He has a Build-A-Bear heart and his brain is pop rocks and silly putty. He also has tennis elbow, hoof in mouth, frog in throat and is limited to only one semicolon. Not only that, he now stoically appreciates bad puns like “Don’t ask, don’t Mattel.” The Simpson family lost Bart at “I love you” and the message of the segment is don’t buy toys. It is perfectly chilling.

Into the Homer-Verse

The Simpsons go full on Homer-Barbera for this tough-loving tribute to the classic cartoon studio. A search for Halloween candy leads Homer on a hunt through the nuclear plant in search of giveaways sweeter than Advil. The bit where Homer is actually going through all the N&Ns and Rhesus snacks on his desk is a highlight, reminiscent of when Elaine ate a centuries-old, and terribly expensive, wedding cake on Seinfeld. Burns, who has Hansel and Gretel caged in a secret lab, prefers his snacks stringy and tough, so there wouldn’t be any sweets there. While he doesn’t find candy, Homer does cause a quantum flash of celestial energy which bursts a hole into an unstable universe, one where no one knows what a Murgatroyd is. The other realm is filled with cartoon Homers, from his Snaggle Puss counterpart through his noir version to a gaming animation pixilation. Disney Princess Homer brings new tonal beauty to the word “d’oh.” It sounds confusing, until Lisa sings it.

The best exchange of the Homer-Verse is when Homer walks past security in a restricted area. The guard says no one is allowed back there. When Homer asks what the guard is doing back there, logic and tasers go flying. It is a surrealistic solution to an abstract problem. The Krustyburger solution of having to find “other sources of meat” to contend with the six new, and hungry hungry Homers is equally surreal, but far crueler, which makes it just as funny. Until Gil gets there and you realize someone might lose their lunch.

“Eat the bacon, victory is mine,” we hear as Japanese Anime Homer sits down with the rest of the misplaced beings to a hearty breakfast. It is a very short segment but exquisitely executed. The Homers overwhelm Marge’s kitchen and threaten the delicate balance of interdimensional relationships. The portal they opened also affects labor relationships as the Burnsiverse knows where to get cheap, undocumented labor and the Smithersverse takes copious notes. Each of the Homers will die over and over again, which isn’t a horrible problem, except they will also die again. Lisa, of course, solves the problem using Harlon Ellison’s law of circular storytelling, as the episode exits, stage left, to run a circular saw over the same premise from a different angle.

Be Nine, Rewind

The Groundhog Day sendup begins with Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up,” the song, which was also featured in Russian Doll, grows more frantic as days and things get pounded like so many bubbling waves. It’s Lisa’s 9th birthday and she’s not sure if she’s ready to be halfway to adulthood. She doesn’t even want to put “Night Night Moon” in the hand-me-down box. The box is for Bart, who is actually ahead of Lisa in school, making it an eye-roller of a bit. Everything is fine until Homer steals frosting from the birthday cake with his finger. The many deaths of Lisa which follow are a tour de farce. Almost every line and sight gag builds on the ones before it, although the most specifically funny death involves a vanity mirror and is both the most and least expected of the lot. It is a millisecond of comic transcendence.

That can’t be said for Krusty’s balloon animals: a cigar, a snake, a worm and a 2×4. He gives out the same unimaginative throwaways at every party, and most Krustyburger grand openings. It’s a running gag that his jokes are all stolen, so feel free to read into the clown’s less than stellar performance. The closing scenario is the most hopeful. Probably just because we lose Gil, again, during it. He generously gives Patty a great set up. He kills a kid on the road test for his driver’s license. He’d better make it up on the written portion. It’s funny because, in many states, it’s relatable enough to be true.

The Simpsons season 32 has been offering consistently satisfying episodes of straight and subversive humor. “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” is the best of the season so far, but the Treehouses are always season highlights, and more reliably than Christmas episodes. No character is safe on Halloween. You can kill Gil as many times as you like. The Simpsons always packs a devilishly delicious trick or treat bag, with nothing so frightening as razor-blade-concealing apples, or anything else remotely nutritious. The opening segment is a political thriller, but the segments themselves are classic comedy.

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chloerd · 4 years ago

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21/10/2020

imagine… 2020: Marina Abramović: The Ugly Duckling

Brendan mentioned The Ugly Duckling on the BBC Art Documentaries. Marina Abramović is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist, she started creating performance art in the 1970s. She was the first female artist to be given a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her performances can last for days, weeks, or even months at a time and are often shocking, provocative, and expose her vulnerability which pushes herself to physical and psychological limits.

“When I realised that I could create art by using just my own body, everything became clear. I experienced absolute freedom. I felt that I was without boundaries, limitless, the pain didn’t matter, and it intoxicated me. That was the moment I knew that I found my own medium.” Abramović said in the documentary, she said no painting or object ever gave her the same feeling that performance art did. She showed us around her home, in her garden she has a 10,000 square feet archive where she keeps her work, studies, and makes plans. Introducing a book written by her and Christopher Anderson called The Ugly Duckling.

Love Thermometer. (1988). Glass Thermometer in a Tailored Leather Case Lined with Silk. Rebecca Horn.

The artist showed us an artwork by Rebecca Horn called Love Thermometer. She then spoke about her lack of love throughout her childhood. Her father was unfaithful, her mother hated him for that, she never showed affection to Marina and even abused her. Her mother was obsessed with symmetry and cleanliness and she would become abusive and angry if either were tempered, but she thought art to be holy and encouraged Marina to create.

Rhythm 5. (1974). Performance; 90 Minutes. Marina Abramović.

In 1968, Abramović became part of a radical group who found ways of putting life into art, they occupied University buildings. In 1974, she built a five-point star from sawdust. The concept behind this was that the five-point star is on every birth certificate, schoolbook, monument, etc. It has followed her since childhood, the five-point star in communist Tito time was untouchable, you can’t touch the symbol. She wanted to make an exorcism in her own ritual way, she set the star alight and lay down with her arms raised side to side like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in the centre of the burning symbol. The oxygen was being taken away due to the fire, and she began to lose consciousness which led to her being carried away by security, she said this is not how she wanted things to end because she wanted to outsee the performance.

youtube

Art Must Be Beautiful Artist Must Be Beautiful. (1975). Video. Marina Abramović,

In this performance, Marina vigorously combs her hair with a metal comb and a metal brush simultaneously. The action of something that usually soft, nurturing, and representative of self-care is now shifted to an action that looks passive-aggressive and damaging. The act of Marina brushing her hair speaks as a metaphor. “I don’t believe in beauty. I believe that art can be disturbing. Art can ask the question, predict the future. And we don’t need to buy art to match our carpet in the living room.”

vimeo

Rhythm 0. (1974). Performances; 6 Hours. Marina Abramović.

In Rhythm 0, Abramović presents a table of objects to the audience and allows them to use them on her however they want. Objects including knives, a gun, a bullet, etc. She wanted to see how far the public would go as she stood motionless and vulnerable. In the documentary, the artist speaks of how human beings are afraid of so many things in life, of suffering. Marina staged these fears for the public to see, and in the process, liberated herself from her own fears. Through this, she became a mirror for the audience, “If I can do it, they can too”. People were carrying her, putting knives between her legs, someone put the bullet in the pistol and put the pistol in her hand and attempted to make her shoot herself. After six hours of this, she knew the public had the capacity to kill her.

youtube

Light/Dark. (1977). Video. Marina Abramović.

In 1975, Abramović went to live in Amsterdam and fell in love with German artist, Frank Uwe Laysiepen known as Ulay. They made numerous performances together.

youtube

Breathing in/Breathing Out. (1977). Video. Marina Abramović.

ULAY: “I am breathing in oxygen. I am breathing out carbon dioxide.”

MARINE: “I am breathing in carbon dioxide. I am breathing out carbon dioxide.”

Breathing In/Breathing Out is one of her favourite artworks, because all they are using is air for the performance. You breathe in and you’re alive, you breathe out and you’re dead, vice versa. Marina said how she is not interested in killing herself but investigating body limits.

Rest Energy. (1980). Performance for Video; 4 Minutes. Ulay/Marina Abramović,

Rest Energy is one of the shortest pieces they have ever made, but she said it felt like a lifetime. It was about trust. Ulay was asked why the arrow was only pointed at her heart and not his, in which he replied, “it is pointed at my heart”.

Great Wall Walk. (1988). Performance on Video; 90 Days. Marina Abramović.

The Great Wall of China is a colossal dragon-shaped structure that stretches over 2000 miles and it is the only man-made object that is visible from outer space. Marina and Ulay both decided to walk the entire length starting from different ends, they would meet in the middle and get married. The piece depicts two video’s running alongside each other, one of Ulay and the other of Marina. It took 8 years for the Chinese to agree to let them do the walk, during this time their relationship fell apart, so when they finally met in the middle after walking alone and enduring extreme weather for three whole months, they separated.

Balkan Baroque. (1977). Three-Channel Video; Cow Bones. 24:47 Minutes. Marina Abramović.

Between 1992 and 1995, The Bosnian war took place. For the Venice Biennale in 1977, Abramović created an installation that consisted of three channel videos, 2,500kg of cow bones, copper sinks, a bucket, soap, a metal brush, and a tub filled with black water. Two separate videos show her mother and her father, with her on a separate video in the middle. This suggests a war between both her parents, with her in the middle. Her parents met in the war, they fell in love but eventually the love turned to hate, and the war began between them when Marina was born. The cow bones were full of blood, at the temperature of 30 degrees with worms coming out of them. Marina scrubbed the blood with the metal brush to clean the flesh from the bones. This played as a metaphor, the artist said how you can never clean the blood from your hands, just like people had blood on their hands from the war. She wanted to create an image of contrast in the war, there is always war somewhere on the planet, this image can be used for any war, anytime, anywhere…

Now running an artist workshop, Marina chooses 12 people out of hundreds of applicants and teaches them everything she knows. She aims to teach them all of what is important with performance work, “You have to love the public. What you are doing is not important. What is important is your state of mind in which you do it”.

The House with The Ocean View. (2002). Performance; 12 Days. Marina Abramović.

The duration of this performance was 12 days. Abramović stayed in the gallery space for 24 hours a day for 12 consecutive days. She asked herself, if she doesn’t eat, talk, if she purifies herself with only drinking water, can she create different atomic energy in the gallery space? To prevent her from climbing down the ladders that were installed, she replaced the steps with knives. She wanted to elevate simple rituals into something transcendental, something as simple as peeing, she would take her pants down, sit, take the toilet roll and the audience would listen to the pee as if it was a waterfall. The audience built up each day, they stayed around the clock to watch the performance unfold. Marina was unsure of how the performance would be perceived in such a demanding place, New York. “The essence of the performance, is that the audience and the performer make the piece.”

The Artist is Present. (2010). Performance. Marina Abramović.

The duration of The Artist is Present was 3 months. The artist sat in a chair for 8 hours a day, every day, and 10 hours a day on Friday. Motionless, continuously sitting still, no food, no drink, no bathroom breaks, no getting up to stretch her legs. The audience queued for days, leaving profoundly affected, some cried as they watched the true essence of the artist unravel. She was in a vulnerable position which touched the public, and they would react to the energy she was giving off.

Abramović speaks about the importance of your state in mind in your performances, she says you must be mentally and physically prepared. She created the Artists Manifesto, which included rituals to help with this. An artist must spend a long time in solitude, looking for rivers, explore volcanoes, nature, seaside, mountains. You must connect with the tree energy to create artwork. She spends time in a hut with no electricity. A chair to sit on and a crystal. 6 days she spends without food, she sits and investigates the crystal, she says the crystal will reveal the memory of the planet.

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7 Deaths of Maria Callas. (2020). Performance. Marina Abramović.

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