#you have read the horrific story that is Metamorphosis

[thegeminisage]

tos ep rewrites/stid rewrite for the wip meme!!!

HIIII ty for asking

this isn't technically a fic per se, it's almost like a half-fic half-meta kind of deal - essentially it's an outline of what could be a fic if i had more time and patience. i did this for the first tos movie here and had a lot of fun doing it, and then i also did a small rewrite of "tholian web" here, and i had SO MUCH FUN DOING THEM but then i got side tracked and haven't done anymore. my plans for other episodes/stid are vaguely as follows:

the enemy within - loved this one conceptually but the crass rape jokes left a real sour taste in my mouth. i'd have less of that (or, if i had it, take it seriously) and more shenanigans where someone can't tell the two kirks apart because. they're both the real kirk!! that's the real point of the episode, right?

the conscience of the king - frankly, there was too much shakespeare here, even though it will always be my fav trek episode of all time. i also thought the lenore thing, while a great twist, could have been a little less "but kirk really secretly loved this woman 20 years younger than him!" and more "man this is crazy fucked up that is trying to honeypot this very young woman and surprise she is doing it back to him." more foreshadowing and drama, you know? the tos version wouldn't have to be gambler's knife but it could be something more than what it was considering the huge effect it had on fandom - i always kinda wished it had the vibes that obsession did.

the galileo seven - i thought this episode treated spock like he was kind of stupid. "why is my first command failing when i've been an asshole to everybody?" he has a human mother! he knows how emotions work! he is not stupid! i also thought there was a missed opportunity: they all talked about how callous it was for him to be picking a man to leave behind to lighten the ship, and he was so obviously going to choose himself, but it never went anywhere. let's do him more justice!

metamorphosis - let's chill with the horrific misogyny and have more fun with the accidental parallel kirk made in his really cool speech. like fuck it this is my edit let's just do spirk

mirror, mirror - this one is actually perfect as it is but i wish we'd had more time to se what the mirror kirk & co were doing in the prime universe.

journey to babel - this one is great but i don't think it takes either of spock's parents to task enough for him turning out like that. also, they tricked us into thinking amanda was the good cop in aos and then have her slap him in tos but then acted like that was just fine? girl, let's get into it

the paradise syndrome - i just want this episode without the heinous racism. please please please. easily easily EASILY my biggest trek disappointment ever

requiem for methuselah/the enterprise incident - these two go together as part of a more complex story based partially on the fact that they originally wanted kirk's breakdown in the latter episode to be a real result of the various um things that happened to him in season 3 and partially by the fact that requiem for methuselah WAS my november 5th and i am being completely serious. i didn't think i would ever feel that way again but i did at the end of that episode. you can read about the general idea here at the end of @maulthots close encounters powerpoint which i helped a little bit with.

honorable mention to episode premises i would have loved in a different context - lights of zetar where spock is the possessed one and an episode totally unrelated to wolf in the fold, the funniest tos ep after tribbles, where an enemy who feeds on fear jumps around the ship possessing people. that could have been great had it been in a serious episode and not been played by piglet's voice actor

and finally, star trek into darkness...everything about this movie was bad, except the warp core thing which was accidentally very very VERY good. so i'd rewrite it from the ground up, starting with recasting khan, because that was just a hateful thing to do. i don't have very many concrete ideas on this yet except you'd HAVE to get assad zaman for khan, right? because he can do that thing where he makes his eyes shake? he would have rocked it.

let people send you an ask with the WIP title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!

[dread-master-styrak]

Hell Year

So most of 2023 and first four months of 2024 were fucking hell. I barely remember it. All thanks to this one fucking person.

I cut them out of my life. They were actively dragging me down and their presence was a huge mental drain on me.

Tw: fictional rape, real suicide attempts, real and fictional self harm.

I will probably edit this post to get my thoughts in order. I'm not telling this story to garner pity, I'm telling it to explain why I was probably acting erratically over the past year.

I think the breakdown that led to me deleting all my SWTOR art, and later my Tumblr was partially caused by me being fucking worn out by this person's demand I talk to them every waking minute of my day.

I was in pain but didn't see that that "friend" was the main source of pain and exhaustion, and so I lashed out at the next best thing.

Please please heed the trigger warnings and the mature content tag!

I don't know what to call them. I suppose "friend" will have to suffice, for ease of telling this story.

I met them last year. Barely two weeks into talking they called me their best friend. They also dumped horrific trauma onto me within those two weeks. Sexual assault. Three suicide attempts. Photos of their fresh cutting wounds.

They put me on a pedestal just cause I showed them basic human kindness and politeness I try to show people by default. They kept saying how they don't need other friends. And how their mood gets better with me around.

They expected non stop 24 \ 7 interaction and would threaten or even attempt self harm and suicide when I said I need space.

I'm very introverted. I REALLY need a lot of alone time and space to recharge. Do you see the problem?

It's difficult to put into words how worn down I got. Several months of non stop RP. Several months of having to constantly comfort this person. Several months without being allowed to rest in peace and quiet. I stopped writing. My art slowed down a lot. I felt like my head was constantly full of buzzing static.

We both were into 40k. So they wormed their way into roleplaying as our characters. They had cool character concepts, but they went out of the window the moment the RP started. They just turned into submissive anime waifus who just want to be isolated with my characters forever and have a traditional family with babies despite being fucking grimdark cyborgs.

Like the player, they said they don't need anyone else. And they all had nearly identical angsty backstories filled with rape. Like, that person would probably think the manga Metamorphosis is peak literature because they think misery and cynicism are intellectual and sophisticated.

Ah yes. Rape. Their favourite fucking subject.

They kept casually shoving rape into the RP, dropping it on both their own and my characters. It was a fun quirky random event to randomly happen in the roleplay. /Sarcasm.

Now, I don't have a problem with dark topics in fiction. You can write or draw whatever. Appropriate tags and warnings are appreciated. But RP is a whole nother beast. It takes two or more people to RP.

I mean, shit. One of my favourite stories ever is Berserk. However. There is a big fucking difference between choosing to read Berserk and reading through the Eclipse, or writing the Eclipse and giving people a choice whether or not they want to read it, and being fucking coerced into roleplaying the Eclipse. As Griffith, no less.

I went with it for two reasons. First, I figured out it was some kind of catharsis for them. Second, my options were either roleplay raping their OC or have a multiple hours long fight. In which they would threaten self harm and suicide, and be passive aggressive. Which in turn is a huge trigger for me as I have to deal with it IRL.

Here's the grim tally of characters who got raped in RP for no fucking reason. Roll the fucking Curb Your Enthusiasm theme, I guess:

My Kenaz, by slaaneshi cultists on their forge world, for like several days straight

Their character R - in their backstory

R again, by their former mentor (makes no sense for admechs to be so controlled by fleshy desires). Dahan (played by me) killed him.

Their character D, same exact backstory as R

D again, by some rando tech priest, who also got killed by Dahan

D yet again, in a horrible alt timeline. Dahan had to watch before breaking out and killing the perps.

Their character F, in her backstory. Slightly different from the other two.

F again, by the same Slaaneshi cultists as Kenaz

F yet again, by a stand in for that exfriend's ex's character. He got, you guessed it, killed by Dahan.

F yet again, by Skoll because I guess the player gets off to that shit.

Kotov, played by me, by a fellow admech(makes no bloody sense)

Irbis, played by me, by the character who was supposed to be his love interest.

My Skoll, by a slaaneshi cultist.

Oh, also: if I gathered my little spine sprout and said no to a scenario or ship for whatever reason, they'd throw a fit and torment me with graphic descriptions of their character mutilating themself. Or draw their character mutilated and post it somewhere I could see.

I eventually got them to stop shoving rape into every plot, until...

The crowning fucked up cherry on top of the shit rape cake. They pushed a scenario where my character Irbis would have a smut related modification installed in him against his will and against his character. And it was implied that their character was the one secretly behind it. Their character, who was supposed to be Irbis's love interest.

And to add insult to injury, the character Scorn so gleefully turned into a rapist was a character I gave them.

I don't know where else to put this, and it's kinda, more light hearted compared to the other shit. They also did this thing where they wanted to copy my character design, have it altered a bit, and make it their own character. I did a lot of these copycat designs for them, but they also commissioned other artists for them as well.

My OCs

Here's a rundown:

- Skoll copycat (designed by me)

- Teyron (centipede tech priest) (designed by me, for free)

- Pollux (fiery lion tech priest) (designed by me, ended up keeping him)

Book characters with my headcanon designs

- Kotov from Forges of Mars (copy based on my design, basic sketch by me, ref done by another artist)

- Dahan from Forges of Mars (copy based on my design, by another artist. Ended up with me and became Irbis.)

Their obsessive adoration towards me scared me. I was / am scared they'd try to find me IRL and do something horrible to me, as the physical boundaries of my body are the only ones they haven't trampled on.

- Telok from Forges of Mars (again, my design)

Actual Warhammer minis:

- Magos Dreykavac (ended up with me, slightly redesigned, and became Ophania)

- Myrmidon Secutor (they just had the artist add a slightly different head. Ended up with me, became Mordred. We love Mordred in this house.)

Back to heavy shit I guess.

I was afraid to walk away, fearing they'd kill themself and the blood would be on my hands. I got so worn down by them throwing fits and threatening to hurt themselves, or getting passive aggressive in the same exact way my mom does, that I just kinda shut down and went with whatever they wanted unless completely drained.

I'm angry at them for taking advantage of me. I'm angry at myself for letting them do so. I saw the red flags but pushed on because I felt responsible for this person.

They were incredibly insecure and I guess jealous? Constantly whining about stuff they didn't get while "everyone else around them got cool stuff".

They threw fits over:

me posting art at quicker rate than they did;

me having cool stuff in SWTOR because I played the game for like 11 years at that point;

Me not wanting to RP SWTOR stuff cause I have a complicated relationship with SWTOR (that one ended up with them posting art of their character gruesomely decapitated where I could see it)

Me begging for time and space alone to fucking rest (that one ended up with them attempting suicide!)

not having money to buy an expensive clothing item

someone in the same room having an ipad and drawing on it.

Me trying to say something nice about their characters and saying they looked kind

At one point they tried to kill themself. I managed to get them to stop. I managed to convince them to get help. I felt so relieved about it.

However...

It came out later thar thet lied to me FOR MONTHS about going to therapy. Which kinda put a big fat question about literally everything about them because if they lied about that FOR MONTHS, what else could have they lied about?

I shit you not, they even mentioned getting made up homework from their made up therapist over the course of the six or so months they kept the lie up. And they passed off info from online articles as shit they learned in therapy.

Somehow they had the brain capacity to remember everything needed to maintain an elaborate lie for MONTHS but then they couldn't be arsed to remember details about their own OCs or my OCs. Priorities I guess.

During the same fight they also tormented me with graphic descriptions of physical harm done to them by a family member, as well as graphic descriptions of self harm and suicide. They knew full well I can't handle graphic descriptions / depictions of violence a lot of the time.

The final straw that killed this relationship was them dropping 40k as an interest. They replaced their entire personality with nutcrackers from Lethal Company.

They kept trying to show me art of them. They sent me screenshots of nsfw messages they sent someone else about the nutcrackers.

I asked them to not show me that. And even then it was this constant hemming and hawing about wanting to show me stuff I explicitly said I didn't want to see.

That last one was the last straw that resulted in a fight where we mutually blocked each other. EXCEPT, TWO DAYS LATER who do I see in my art page's notification, but A PAINFULLY OBVIOUS ALT of theirs? It had the name of one of their OCs as the name, and their own 2Edgy5U nutcracker art as the pfp.

Like, good job burning any remnants of any bridge that could stay between us, dumbass.

And like, I feel bad for hating them because they are obviously very mentally ill. But also I left because they wouldn't leave me alone even when I begged for it. And i sure had to beg a disturbing amount over the course of whatever shambling fuck that relationship was.

They lied to me. They coerced me into roleplaying rape scenarios under threats of self harm and suicide. They took advantage of me trying to be kind and turned me into their little therapy bitch.

And like, my fucking art block that had me in a chokehold for like two months cleared up almost the moment I hit the block button. I feel much calmer for the most part. I even started writing again.

I recently learned that it's healthier to express emotions than to bottle them up and let them fester, and I have a lot of pent up emotions about this.

A few months after I left, I briefly spoke to them to see if they have some files I lost. We talked. They seemed to be apologetic, but given their capacity to lie, what's the worth of those apologies?

Apparently i was the only one blessed with being coerced into roleplaying rape under threat of self harm, suicide, and multiple hours long fights. What fun. /Sarcasm.

I bought some character designs from them, and they tried to charge me twice for one of them, claiming they forgot. Jury is out on whether or not its the truth or they just wanted to squeeze a bit more money from me lol.

I went back to blocking them after a brief fight where I confronted them about everything they did and that it hurt me. Of course, they started whining that they don't wanna hear about it.

I don't regret the fight or going back to blocking them. It was my plan to do so, after my dealings with them were done, although my plan was less aggressive. I just wanted to fade out. But leaving with a bang will do too.

All in all, I have mixed feelings about it all that range from grief to hatred and back.

I cared about them. But now I hate them. I want them to know that I hate them, and to know exactly why. My fucking life is now separated into Before Them, The Hell Year, and After Them.

Never got my files back even tho I distinctly remember giving them an archive. Just got a bunch of random shit they saved from the internet, some of it not even mine.

Also, Scorn, if you see this: FUCK YOU.

You raped my soul. You took advantage of my kindness. You lied to me for months. With friends like you, who bloody needs enemies?

I hope the people you're using for your entertainment and free therapy see that you are a leech. A leech that attaches itself to people and sucks out their personality, beliefs, interests, and energy.

Also, how's that chatroom that roleplays astra militarum by harassing people for being weird or queer or furries treating ya, by the way? You had no issue with it despite having latched onto the exact kind of person they target. You hung out with them despite me foolishly coming out to you.

I hope you end up alone for the rest of your life. Because it is your biggest fear. And I hope it comes true. And no one hears your screaming fits that your literally terminally online ass has if your internet cuts out for 0.000001 seconds.

To anyone who might divine who this person is: don't engage with them. Don't harass them, it will only fuel their martyr / victim shtick. Don't let them near unless you want to be coerced into rape roleplay, or unless you want to be an emotional support dog.

[hellsvestibule]

Yeah absolutely. The story isn’t meant to be taken literally, and especially if you read it in conjunction with its fellow son the judgement I think it was (I always get trial and judgment names mixed) there’s even these strange Freudian undercurrents w the dad thing (the father in the judgement tells georg to go drown himself, which is also a sexual euphemism, and at some point says Gregor is his son now and he loves Gregor more than his real son and then is like haha jk Gregor is already dead. Basically establishing some sort of nonsense kafkaverse throughline between these 2 specific narratives, bc this is Personal to him, bc Kafka was trying to sort out issues w his own father, and while I want to fistfight Freud to death in an alley, I like Kafka, partially despite/because how he articulates the feeling of having issues w one’s father so well.

Maybe I’ll give it a try! I admit though I struggle w these things bc there’s so much available. actually like, almost all of his work is online, including his letters and basically all the biographical and admissions to how his personal experiences relate to works like The Metamorphosis (I.e. the words he says to his own father, the metamorphosis was about you, but I’m sure you didn’t read it) which. It’s stuff like that which does make Kafka an interesting figure to talk about!

But there’s actually all the stuff related to the rise of Nazisim and Zionism and how they play into this surrounding context which I feel like, I’m both, not really the most qualified person to dissect, but I don’t think should be fully discarded when trying to make a “deeper” analysis of Kafka. Although this type of information is there on his Wikipedia page. He’s an interesting cultural figure and I think people misunderstand him in so many ways even though it’s hard not to bc of how he frames himself.

I think I would try to focus on how his work is not fantastical and is in fact about the antithesis and death of the types of grandiose narratives his titles invoke, which better elaborates on why the interpretations of Gregors condition as something non-literal are probably closer to what he intends, bc kafka’s never really writing from the vantage point what we’d typically consider horror or fantasy, in fact Id say he’s almost averse to both, which is why even as horror, metamorphosis would fall flat, because it’s both horrific and funny in execution (i.e. Gregors mundane reaction at the start. to The Horrors of his existence. as mostly just being an inconvenience bc he has to go back to work. is genuinely funny and fucked up)

I always have to struggle not to write a 10 page essay on kafka’s the metamorphosis and how if you take the “monsterous vermin” thing too literally and envision him as like, a cockroach or garden beetle, rather than holding his perspective of himself almost like a (much scarier sounding bug, like a centipede or something) lurking in the shadows of his own room, in contention w the read that he’s either seriously ill, or probably just staring at his cock and thinking what a horny monster he is. Like of you don’t get the 3 tiered pun of all his descriptions of this ribbed brown thing with many small legs and strange white dots across his belly or whatever, it’s not as impactful. As humor or horror or social commentary or whatever you envision it to be

[thatwirddemonhunter]

Bager in the Light, by Lucifer Buitrago part 1

Tage Hopp was not a particularly religious man, but that morning he thought "maybe there is a god, and I made him mad." He had a badger face! He didn't feel that strange, but he looked strange. He always had a beard and his face was almost always covered in dirt and grime, his long brown hair was still there although a little thicker, the fangs he gained didn't sit very well in his mouth and his hands had long nails or claws, what's the difference? In short, he felt hairier than normal; and hungry. "I should get some food before I fully become a badger," he said.

The weather outside was cold and dark, the sea was roaring loudly and dangerously. The day was like any other at the lighthouse and the tiny island it resided on.It was a small island situated off the coast of Wick, though the men that Tage worked with did not hail from the small fishing town.

The men that he worked with were very loud and annoying. He came to the island to get away from folks like them and instead is put with them, on a secluded hellscape. There were four: Erengisle Laxman,Oren Bloom,Xavier and Kohen Gill. The Gill brothers were the rowdiest in Tage's mind since he shared a room with them. Laxman was the second loudest, though a happy and joys kind of loud, and he was the most knowledgeable on account of his age; though he is more aware of other people then the other three, and always soft spoken when he talked to Tage. Bloom was a large and booming man, and his voice reflected that, always barking orders, speaking with his mouth full of food and yelling when something was not done his way, normally Laxman would intervin and calm him down. The only one Tage liked to be around was Olga, an old russin hound, no one knows where she came from, not even Laxman, but she is vital to running the lighthouse. Why you may ask, and I shall repeat this once more, no one knows. The only reason Tage really stays is if he goes home it will be worse. At least you can reason with a person that is not related to you, well for the most part.

As Tage was thinking this, Bloom came into the room, booming voice and everything. Lucky for him did not see Tage in his badger from due to the curtain dividing the room.

"Hopp, get up! Now!", it was a miracle the twins didn't wake up.

"And wake those two.I got a bone to pick with them" he said

"I'll get to it sir" Tage responded.

"AND-"

"I know what to do sir"

"Watch your mouth young man!"

BOOM, went to the boor as Bloom left the room, as he did every morning.

After sitting still for a little bit, he got up and checked if the other two were awake and not to his surprise they were fast asleep.The Gill brothers came from a large family like Tage, so they could sleep through anything. Sadly,Tage did not learn this trick;instead he had to learn to sleep anywhere quiet and secluded, like the top of the lighthouse. So instead of following Bloom’s orders, Tage left the twins alone and got ready for the day.

Now normally he gets dressed quickly, mostly due to the cold, but with the new fur that had grown overnight it felt like he did not need to dress but did either way. As soon as he finished clothing himself he left the room to do his morning chores. Hopefully with no one seeing him. Laxman was still asleep, and waking him was the first thing he needed to do.

Laxman was a deep sleeper and Tage knew he had to go in and physically move him.That made him have to think through his next move, as no one had seen him yet and he was not too sure that their reaction would be as calm as his.

The plan he concocted involved Olga and some very sneaky hiding since Bloom was already awake. As Tag went out, he took off his shoes to make his step much quieter.Once outside, he went looking for Olga, and it did not take him long. Tag had thought that she would growl and snarl at his new looks, but he had worried for nothing, she knew him immediately. Tag loved Olga’s company, he had promised that once he got a better job that he would take Olga with him but always got stopped by the old geezers, Laxman and Bloom.Mostly Laxman. Always Laxman, Bloom just stood there looking menacing.

As he got Olga through the house and toLaxmans door he got her level."Now listen Olga, I need you to do something for me" he said at the derpy borzoi."You're going into Laxman's room, and jump on him, got it" he got no response but knew by the look in her eyes she understood the plan.Tage let Olga in the room through a sliver of the door opening then closed and waited. Not for long though, as he heard a very loud but happy "OLGA?!".

After that, he went to check the chores list and in big booming letters after his name "WAKE XAVIER AND KOHEN" followed by a small polite "please". Now there's no point in avoiding it, Bloom was probably mad now and for the next couple of days too. Seeing this made Tage realize that Bloom might of unitentiely woke them and he had to go back either way to get his tools for the fog horn.Now this time there was no Olga to send in. He went back to his room to see if the Twins were awake and as he neared the door he heard them.

"Where do you think that little imp went, any who?" said Xavier, with his gruff voice.

"I don't know, but when I see him, he going to get an earful, he is!" Kohen said, clearly angry.

The Twins were from Leeds and never spoke proper English, Bloom didn’t either but that was because he spoke Yiddish and Laxman claims he hails from Bristol but his Scottish accent betrays him.The Twins were from Leeds and never spoke a proper English, Bloom didn't either but that was because he spoke Yiddish and Laxman claims he hails from Bristol but his Scottish accent betrayed him. Tage was the odd one out with his "proper London '' as Xavier called his accent; and because of it the brothers push him around, making him out to be a weak noble or something and Bloom belittles him with every word.

Hearing them made Tage want to throw them off the light, straight into the water, maybe the sirens will get them, after this morning anything is possible. But why was he thinking that he's got a job to do, just ignore them. Tage went in without thinking, got his coat and tools and left. He just marched out, ignoring everything and went to fix the horn.

After an hour or so he heard some barking and turned to see Olga with Erengisle Laxman, staring at him with a mix of shock, confusion and a little bit of fear. Olga was just happy to see him, and she came to him looking for treats as always. Seeing her come up to Tage made Laxman snap out of his shock.

“H-hey Tage, can we talk to you?” the terrified voice of Laxman followed. No one had seen him all morning in his new badger for, with the exception of Olga, but she made no fuss about his looks. Laxman was being cautious around him but Tage assumed it was because of the badger face. He sat next to Tage and started to speak again.

"So... it is Tage under there... still, right?" he asked

"Yeah. Just harrier." an awkward silence followed.

"This isn’t the first time appears with an..." he jesters to Tages head "an creater of sorts."

"I'm having a hard time believing that Eren."

"No really, where do you think Olga came from?"

"WHAT?" Tage yelled.

“No no no no no, I've realized that was a bad joke. Sit back down lad.” he said to Tage making the motion to sit back. Tage had a feeling that this was his way of coping with the fact his co-worker had the features of a badger. Olga just rested her head on Tages lap.

[noa-ciharu]

'kay i want book recs that will give me psychological damage please!

Here comes the psychological damage! Also I'm so sorry it took me few months to write this out :<

Alright, since it's been a while since I read classics, out of books I can rec: The Stranger (Albert Camus, 1942), Myth of Sisyphus (Albert Camus, 1942), Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dolstoevski, 1844), Notes from Underground (Fyodor Dolstoevski, 1864), The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915), No Longer Human (Dazai Osamu, 1948), The Collector (John Fowles, 1963) and let's add Under Cherries in Full Bloom (Sakaguchi Ango, 1966) for absurdity's sake.

Now if you want mangas (which I have a hunch you do), then here are some:

Baraou no Souretsu (Aya Kanno; 17 vols, 2013-2022)

I've read this one a month ago and I still can't get it out of my mind. It's a dark historical shojo tragedy, genre rarely seen nowadays. Story is about prince Richard, who is born neither male nor female - with both sexes actually. From very beginning his mother cast him aside and called a demon that'll bring misfortune to those around him. Needless to say this way of growing up left deep scars on Richard as he cannot accept himself. Manga is based on historical happenings (Wars of Roses I believe), so expect alot of dramas and tragedies. Plot is unique in my opinion, especially the regression of characters where instead of becoming better versions of themselves they fall into their characters flaws. Richard and other characters are extremely well written, struggles he faces regarding love and vulnerability are realistically portrayed. I especially liked Richard's multiply yet all tragic in a manner love interests and bonds he formed with them; one of rare romances in mangas I genuinely loved. Art is beautiful, I fully recommend this manga (although it is very dark and brutal).

Earl Cain/ GodChild (Yuki Kaori, 8 vols, 2001 - 2003)

Again, historical tragic gothic shojo with shonen ai vibes. Manga has two names if that's confusing you; why that's the case however, I have no clue. Set in 19th century England, a young nobleman Cain solves mysteries and crimes; he's followed by his servant Riff and 10 year old half sister Mary. He succeeded position as family head after early death of his father. Series goes on as rather tame for a bit but with dreading feeling of disaster lurking under corner. Once facades drop, they drop for real and series takes on a rather dark, conflicting and dramatic turn. That's all I can say without spoiling things too much. Artstyle is amazing (I mean, it's Kaori Yuki). Characters are amazingly written, especially Clain and Mary. Full with symbolism, even main character's name is a symbol of its own. Once more, series is rather dark and can be heavy to read to it might not be everyone's cup of tea. But in term of psychological damage and drama, as well as Shakespearean tragedy, it's amazing.

Bastard (Youngchan Hwang, 5 vols; 2014 - 2016)

Now I must clarify - I never read this one to the end. Not because I disliked it but because it scared life out of me. Psychological horror, very disturbing and gore. Jin is the quiet protagonist that goes on with his life; however right from the very start you can tell there's something deeply unsettling about him. Quite uncanny atmosphere goes on for a few intro chaps where you're trying to figure out what's wrong with Jin and what's the source of his terror. Then another shoe drops: his father, who is respectful business man on surface, is a deranged serial killer who sells organs and for years Jin had unwillingly been his accomplice. I've googled this manhwa for images and saw pics of him and.... kudos to author how distorted and horrific he's drawn and how effective horror is in his works but I'll be needing therapy. This is a webton, so expect amazing graphic, horror and jumpscares (effective one to the boot) and alot of psychological drama and gore. This webton deranged me, I couldn't sleep for days, I had to drop it for sake of mental health. But I have nothing but praises for it, best of horror manhwas I've read so far. There are few other manhwas by same author, they're all amazingly written and bring chills to bones in a way that lasts, not simply in terms of jumpscares and horror images but tension and terrific atmosphere.

Tokyo Babylon (CLAMP, 7 vols, 1990-1993)

I have to live up to my reputation of Clamp blog. Don't be fooled by bight colors this ain't a happy manga. Jokes aside, this is another dark shojo with psychological and tragic elements. Protagonist is 16 year old medium Subaru who deals with spirits which are left lingering on Earth and unable to move on due to pain. However what sets this manga apart from rest exorcism media is that focus is on social issues, emotional conflicts and psychological elements; social criticism. There are only three characters (beside chap-per-chap ones) so they're all complex and explored; and quite unique both as individuals and trio. Deconstruction of typical coming of age mangas as tragedy is something that's inseparable from wishes and happiness. Manga had darker undertones and looming sense of dread from beginning but it was still somewhat light because of dynamic main trio head; once the other shoe drops and pretense stops, real tragic nature shows. One of most memorable and tragic/ nihilistic endings I've ever seen in fiction. If you've watched Hannibal I'd say skeleton of underlining plot is pretty similar.

Also Tokyo Babylon has a continuation (although both series can be read on their own, but spoilers) and since that's psychological damage on steroids imma rec it too:

X/1999 (CLAMP, 18.5 vols, 1992 - )

Unfortunately this one has been on hiatus since 2003; but imo is worth the read anyways. Starts as regular shojo but really quickly turns into dark apocalypse psychological drama with some gore. Protagonist is teenager boy named Kamui who returned to Tokyo as mother instructed him before dying. There he finds out he's the one who'll decide fate of World: he's given a choice to either protect it or seek change, bring revolution down to Earth and destroy it. But Kamui doesn't want anything to do with it; he's trying to stay away in misguided attempt to protect those he loves as he believes tragedies follow him. However he cannot escape fate and eventually decides to stay with those he cares about and try to protect them, only for things to go wrong again. X is full of symbolism and dark shojo elements; also tragedies since for 18 vols not once could characters catch a break. Main characters are extremely complexly written, plot is intriguing and artstyle in later volumes one of best I've ever seen in mangas. Bonds between characters and self-destructive wishes are core of manga, as well as (presumably) deconstruction of selfless sacrifice in name of love trope.

Monster (Naoki Urasawa; 18 vols, 1994 - 2001)

This one is more famous, you've probably heard of it. Psychological thriller mystery. Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a surgeon in one hospital in Germany. One night he's faced with a difficult decision: twins Joahn and Anna arrive to the hospital in same time some Major does. Johan has a gun wound to the head - Tenma can operate on only one of them. He chooses to save a boy. Major dies as result and Tenma loses his social status. A decade latter series of strange events start occurring, only for Tenma to realize in the end he saved a 'Monster' that night. He vows to fix that mistake. An amazing series and show, I've seen it long ago so I can't recall too many details. Characters are fleshed out and deeply explored along with psychological elements like what does it take one to become a 'Monster'.

Beside those I can rec Neon Genesis Evangelion (this is a heavy watch/read, you need to be in right mindset for it), Erased (was nice until the ending), Killing Stalking (look, rabid yaoi fangirls ruined this one, from psychological horror perspective this is amazingly written; check trigger warnings beforehand), xxxHolic and Higurashi.

[akaluan]

psssst. hey aka wanna talk about code vein meta and the life cycle of the BOR parasites -ser

The life cycle of the BOR parasites, huh? Those parasites, huh? The horrific, vampire-lite creating parasites that underpin Code Vein's EVERYTHING, huh?

SURE WHY NOT!

(Cut because Ser and I have legitimately done some "the ground is soft and I have a shovel" world building + a lot of these suppositions / worldbuilding is based off of story spoilers. So if you have no desire to read horrifying parasite / invasion worldbuilding based on Code Vein spoilers, skip this post, lol!)

Okay so, I'm going to start with some basic facts that Code Vein's story tells us:

1) we don't know where the BOR (Biological Organ Regenerative) parasites, the Horrors, or the Thorns of Judgment come from

2) the BOR parasites show up first, and are found because dead animals literally GET UP AND START ATTACKING EVERYTHING in search of blood

3) BOR parasite research initially starts as MEDICAL research, not to create Revenants for fighting

4) It isn't very long after BOR parasite research begins that the Horrors show up

5) all BOR parasites in the current Revenants are "artificial" (I'm actually suspecting that it's similar to using a weakened virus to train the immune system -- it's still a true BOR parasite, probably a cloned one, but it's been nerfed in order to generate Revenants that are in control of themselves)

There's a lot more than we get to see and that I'll be mentioning during this ramble, but these are some starting tidbits to build from.

So, first off.

BOR Parasites, which have never been found in ANY BIT OF PREVIOUS HUMAN HISTORY, are suddenly discovered. It's a medical miracle! Let's try to do some research on these things!

During the process of the research, gigantic beasts call Horrors suddenly appear and start wreaking havoc. Humans die too quickly to these things, so the BOR Parasite research is turned away from medical miracle to...

generating an army.

An army of pseudo-immortal soldiers. An army of pseudo-immortal soldiers that ALL REQUIRE BLOOD. And that, upon messing up and going into Frenzy, become Lost.

Revenants can be ashed (permanently killed) by stabbing the heart, where the BOR parasite resides. Becoming a Lost means that the BOR parasite takes over the entire body, not just the heart, and thus the BOR parasite itself becomes no longer vulnerable. Lost cannot be killed because upon taking near-fatal death, the parasite triggers dissolution and the body turns into motes that reform later in another place. (Revenants go through this same process when they take near-fatal damage that isn't damage to the heart. It's the BOR parasite's will to survive showing through.)

At some point, I'm hazy on the exactness of the timing, the Great Collapse happens and the Thorns of Judgment erupt from the earth and essentially rearrange the Earth's surface. The Thorns of Judgment are often a deep brown with glowing golden bits. I think there might be a few other colors, but those are the majority.

So in the process of all of this, more research is done and Project QUEEN is begun in order to find ways around some of the downsides of Revenants. Project QUEEN is carried out by feeding the subject Revenant the blood of (game says "all known animals" but I'm calling bullshit bc that's A LOT) many many animals, which ends up changing the Revenant and "evolving" (games stop using "evolution" when you mean "metamorphosis" challenge) the BOR parasite, at the cost of horrible pain to the subject and the feeling of harboring a growing monster.

Project QUEEN ends with the subject going into frenzy and becoming the Queen, who is ALMOST like a Lost, except... not as irrational / instinctive / driving to JUST EAT. The Queen is shown in several instances to fight intelligently, and seems to lead the Lost in some way. Drinking the Queen's blood (which is BLUE, btw! Every other Revenant is shown as having red blood, as are the Lost) is guaranteed to make a Revenant frenzy.

An INTERESTING note is that the Queen has access to... thorns. That look exactly like the Thorns of Judgment except WHITE AND SMALL

So now we get into "the ground is soft and I have a shovel and a will" area

We don't see many Horrors in this game -- we canonically see one in the main game, which is a gigantic canine/monkey-esque beast, and then three others in the DLC Depths maps -- but Mido (eugh, I hate taking this bastard's comments into consideration, BUT) makes a comment in the late game that Revenants and even the Queen are but stepping stones, and the Horrors are the next point in the "evolution" of humanity (STOP USING EVOLUTION WHEN YOU MEAN METAMORPHOSIS CHALLENGE)

Mido has also altered himself and.. essentially forced a metamorphosis of his own, making him look almost like a Lost except retaining his human rationality (not that he had much =| bastard) and ability to reason, etc. Or at least some level of it, since we can't be entirely sure how much his brain chemistry is being affected by the BOR Parasite and how much is just.. Mido is a fucking bastard like Kurotsuchi.

ANYWAY

Ser and I have shoved the puzzle pieces together in this order:

BOR Parasites and Horrors are from the same place, with the BOR Parasites leading the way.

BOR Parasites appear. Start to infect low level things, (animals etc) and begin to transform them into Lost. The Lost generate something called Miasma that affects other infected beings around them. Lost also become STRONGER via Miasma intake over time, which tends to... make them larger.

The growing population of Lost + Miasma serves as a beacon, drawing more BOR parasites to the planet. It's canonical that Lost blood (and also Revenant blood) affects inanimate objects -- it's called Ichor and it's used to make Blood Veils do their thing. The more Revenant / Lost blood that's spilled, the more "infected" the world becomes.

At some point, Ser and I believe that a BOR Parasite managed to essentially "infest" the planet itself. As a result, the Great Collapse happened, and the Thorns of Judgement appeared. I believe that the Thorns of Judgment act as a... a beacon of sorts. Where there were only a few Horrors here or there, there's now a veritable flood of Horrors, which accelerates humanity's desire to create revenants to fight. More revenants means more potential Lost. More potential Lost increases the miasma levels which makes more Revenants frenzy and become Lost, cycle continues.

Project QUEEN resulted in a "frenzied" but STILL RATIONAL entity that cannot be ashed, causes instant frenzy upon ingestion of its blood, and IS ABLE TO USE AN ABILITY THAT LOOKS LIKE THE THORNS OF JUDGMENT.

Proposition: Queen is not a Lost, Queen is A BABY HORROR.

Proposition: BOR Parasites are the larval form of Horrors.

So the life cycle, before humans intervene, looks like this:

BOR Parasites -> Lost -> Horrors -> [a "queen" is created] -> new planet is found -> Queen creates and releases new BOR Parasites on the new planet, cycle continues

When they come across humanity, the life cycle becomes a bit tangled, BUT:

BOR Parasites -> Revenant [a "queen" is generated in THIS stage and skips to Horror stage, but isn't truly mature the way it should be] -> Lost -> Horrors

I propose that the relics that are being handed around are Similar To But Not Quite Identical To the "eggs" that a true, mature queen entity would produce to make more BOR Parasites. Except in this case, I think that if they actually allowed the Relics to fully take over the bearers, you'd end up with more of the weird, "baby" queens that still need to mature before the cycle can truly continue.

So, in short, every Revenant is a Horror in potentia.

("In order to kill the monsters, we became the monsters")

Anyway, thank you for reading my long, rambling thesis on why Code Vein is a truly horrifying game no matter how you look at it or what ending you get.

=)

[dewitty1]

Fic Recs Wrap Up  -  October 2020 (੭ˊ͈ ꒵ˋ͈)･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*☆

Mental by sara_holmes @captn-sara-holmes

Harry has had quite enough of sharing his mind with someone else, thankyouverymuch. A miscast Legilimency spell says otherwise. Rec Post

Changing of the Guard by Lomonaaeren

Need a perfect stranger? Ask Metamorphosis. Harry Potter runs the business secretly and becomes whoever’s needed for each occasion. He’s not sure whether he should be more surprised, worried, or amused when Draco Malfoy comes to Metamorphosis and requests an actor who can play his boyfriend so that his parents will disown him. Yet Harry has even more dangerous choices after he creates Brian, Draco’s “perfect” boyfriend. Draco doesn’t know who Brian is, but he’s trying to find out—and now so is Harry. Rec Post

Going Once, Going Twice by VivacissimoVoce

Draco Malfoy has been missing for two years. Now the Malfoy estate is going up for auction, and Harry decides it’s time to find out what happened to his former school rival. Rec Post

Oath Breaker by GoblinCatKC @kc-anathema

At the start of seventh year, the Malfoys perform a dramatic double-cross against the dark lord and Draco educates Harry in an old school of magic. With a wild dragon chase, narrow escapes and an unlikely romance as Draco is forced to reveal to a hostile wizarding world that the Malfoy family is dark. Rec Post.

Tea and No Sympathy by who_la_hoop

It's Potter's fault, of course, that Draco finds himself trapped in the same twenty-four-hour period, repeating itself over and over again. It's been nearly a year since the unpleasant business at Hogwarts, and Draco's getting on with his life quite nicely, thank you, until Harry sodding Potter steps in and ruins it all, just like always. At first, though, the time loop seems liberating. For the first time in his life, he can do anything, say anything, be anything, without consequence. But the more Draco repeats the day, the more he realises the uncomfortable truth: he's falling head over heels for the speccy git. And suddenly, the time loop feels like a trap. For how can he ever get Harry to love him back when time is, quite literally, against him? Rec Post

Never the Same Again by frances potter

The war is over ... in fact it never really got started because the Dark Lord proved to be the more powerful. Now five years after Dumbledore's death, Draco Malfoy has something else to worry about besides being a spy. Rec Post

Starts With a Spin by Maxine @serasarahhhh

It started with the spin of a bottle, and now Harry and Draco have gotten themselves so far into their own game there's almost no way out again. Except to keep playing. Rec Post

Saving Draco Malfoy by Dayspring

While the Wizarding world waits for Harry Potter to save them, Draco Malfoy decides to save himself. Rec Post

We Are Young (I'll Carry You Home Tonight) by Femme (femmequixotic) @femmequixotic

Harry and Draco have been falling into bed on and off again since the last election five years ago, much to the amusement--and financial gain--of their circle of friends. But when Harry agrees to work with Draco to put Kingsley Shacklebolt into the Minister's office, they can't work side-by-side again every day and sleep together; that would be courting disaster. Wouldn't it? Rec Post

₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡ Here are some other fics you might enjoy-

On the Last Day by trishjames @thusspoketrish

Draco is still mourning the recent loss of his mother when the Wizarding World is struck with the tragic news of Harry Potter’s untimely death. It’s just his luck that Potter not only comes back as a ghost, but seems intent on haunting Draco as he’s the only one that can see him. It’s a race against time to retrace the last few days of Potter’s life in order to find his body before he’s lost to the living or spiritual realm forever. On their journey, they’ll uncover secrets, betrayals, and a horrific truth that will disrupt both the living and the dead. Fic Claim Post, Art Post 1, 2, 3 ( art by @eromnid )

Scenes of Surrender by Rasborealis

Draco just wants to keep his head down and finish his last year at Hogwarts. He's not supposed to let his mask slip, and Harry isn't supposed to care. Art post

You Don't Know Me (Like You Used To) by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair

"Buy me a drink as compensation for maiming me?" he asks.

"And why the hell would I do that?" It’s a perfectly valid question. A drink invitation from Harry Potter is about as likely of a scenario as me streaking down Piccadilly in broad daylight. Consider me completely thrown off.

Sometimes it only takes a week to change everything. The story of how twenty-five-year-old Draco Malfoy hit one Harry Potter with a door and knocked both of their lives into somewhere entirely new. Rec post

True Children Still by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair

After years of dancing around each other, Draco and Harry have finally begun to date, though they're taking things slow. They've got enough to figure out as it is, and the last thing Harry needs is an unexpected introduction to desires he's not quite ready to face. (please heed the tags!) Rec post

Asking For A Friend? by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair

Asking for a friend? Don't be shy! I'm Genna Russ with advice!

Draco Malfoy, drag queen and agony aunt for the Daily Prophet, is very happy with his life. He loves his job. He loves his drag queen persona. And he loves the fact that the wider Wizarding world doesn't know who is offering them sassy advice with their morning news.

When he starts receiving letters from one Harry Potter – letters that are too racy to publish – he does the only thing he can do: he replies. His carefully constructed secret life is at risk of being blown wide open, but he just can't help himself. Draco never did have any self-control where the Prat Who Lived was concerned. Rec Post

Take My Wonder by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair

Harry Potter is the author of very well-written children's text books. Joshua Starkweather is the author of not-so-well-written erotic fiction. Only one person knows that they are one and the same. Rec post

Starkissed by Anonymous for @hd-fan-fair

“Your tattoos!” The intruder says, boldly stepping over Ron’s chaise and crossing in front of Hermione to get to Harry, eyes wide and hungry. Harry immediately sits up, pulling the towel draped across the back of his chair down over his shoulders.

“No! Don’t cover them. They’re beautiful.”

.

Harry hopes an indulgent trip abroad will help shake him out of the doldrums of his life. What he finds once he gets to Venice is more than he ever expected. Rec Post

If an Injury Is to Be Inflicted by shealwaysreads (onereader) @shealwaysreads

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

Harry Potter disappeared a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, and with him went all hope for true change in magical Britain.

Three years later, Draco indulges himself and attends his first Dog Fight—the infamous underground fights with no rules, no referee, and no points system bar blood on the floor. The game was simple: you win, or you die.

A glint of green amidst the blood-red changes everything. Fic Claim/RecPost

♡✧( ु•⌄• ) I hope you enjoy these as much as I have!  

As always, thank you so much for  following, reading, and reblogging! Your support means so much to me!

xoxo Carey ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡💜💙💚💛❤💗💕💖

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Hello! Hope you’re having a great day! I love your work! Anyways, I came around here to ask if you have any book recommendations, or any favourite books (or authors)? I know you like PKD, Ray Bradbury, and Frank Herbert’s (DUNE DUNE DUNE) works already, so you don’t have to include them. ALSO: I really do love your writing, you have an amazing way with words and all your stories have awesome plots and are just generally awesome!

Have I mentioned Dune today?

I kid, I kid. Glad you like my work so much, that’s always very flattering and nice to hear.

Now, let’s poke around my bookshelf and see what I can come up with on the fly.

Authors:

Vladimir Nabokov (anything by him is wonderful if horrifically disturbing)

Patricia A. McKillip (I recommend 99% of what she’s written so you pretty much can’t go wrong. I’m particularly fond of “The Riddlemaster Trilogy”)

Meredith Ann Pierce (she hasn’t written nearly as much as the other two but of what I’ve read of her I’ve enjoyed all of it. I recommend “The Dark Angel” trilogy and “The Woman Who Loved Reindeer” (seriously, I know, even with that title)).

Franz Kafka (admittedly I’ve only read various short stories, “The Metamorphosis”, and “The Castle” but I loved all of them) 

Catherine M. Valente (she sometimes falls prey to purple prose but on the whole I’m a fan of her works)

Ursula K. Le Guin (I’m a huge fan of her science fiction works, not so much her fantasy though I’ve never really read Earth Sea. “Lathe of Heaven” and “The Left Hand of Darkness” are some of my favorites for her)

Margaret Atwood (particularly the Oryx and Crake books though I do also like Handmaiden’s Tale)

Books:

The Bartimeaus Trilogy by Jonathon Stroud

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

“I, Claudius” and “Claudius the God” by Robert Graves (though honestly I prefer the Masterpiece Theater adaptation and would recommend it over the books)

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupers

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Princess Bride by William Goldman (I’d say it’s equivalent to the movie, the movie is a near perfect movie and I can’t say I can point out any flaw in it)

The Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (for god’s sake though, bail at book 5, BAIL AT BOOK 5)

“Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll

“The Destination: Void” series by Frank Herbert (not quite up there with Dune for me, but when  you have an AI ship that thinks its Jesus in deep space for centuries you get some seriously weird shit that’s worth a read.)

[havocinthebluebox]

Because we are confined and I AM A BAD BITCH, I'm asking you... All the Fairy tale inspired ask game. ALL !

Bitch, are you kidding me ?! XD

Well : LET’S FUCKIN DO THIS

Which item would tempt you most? A golden comb, an embroidered belt or a gleaming red apple?The gleaming red apple !

You know the Faerie Queen is holding her ball at dawn. What dress do you wear to seduce her? (Description or photo)Dear, you know I am subtle and everything ! So, if I really want to seduce her I am not going to wear anything but a lacey long black nightgown underneath a black velvet cape.

Are you more the type to cut off your braid and wear an armour to save your princess or the type to give up your royal privileges to run away with your beloved maid?Wearing and armour sounds dope but I don’t give a shit about royal privileges so, yep : I run away scandalously with the maid !

When picking a suitor, would you test their wit, their intelligence or their kindness? (Bonus: how?)Already answered : kindness !

You’re send out to save your kingdom from a cruel king. The journey will lead you through dangerous woods and unknown lands - what do you pack in your rucksack? Which animals would you ask to aid you on your journey?Enough emergency rations to begin with (falling from hypoglycemia in front of the evil king is the last thing I want !), bivouac kit, an enchanted map, magic potions and my tarot cards. I’d ask the crows to aid me, be my sentinels and messengers !

What stayed with you most from the fairytales you enjoyed as a child? Can be a quote, a detail, a character, a moral or a whole story ark.I discovered classical european fairytales later in my life. I’d say myths and legends had more influence on me as a child. Greek myth to be more precise, with the story of Asterion and the labyrinth.

They’re all awful, but - in which castle would you rather be imprisoned? A castle filled with your loved ones in deathly slumber and surrounded by rose hedges - a glass castle at the end of the world, threatened by the cruel coldness of sun and moon who hunger for human flesh - a castle with a beautiful garden where every path leads to the same secret chamber dripping in blood? Why?Honestly ? I don’t know why, but the glass castle at the end of the world sounds like a description of an Emperor album cover art to me. Sounds thrilling to me. Maybe I can observe the sun and moon, understand some dark untold secrets about the universe, master these secrets partially or entirely and put them into my magical craft.

What poem would a kind-hearted mortal have to recite to entice you into revealing yourself to them?La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats

At the faerie banquet - which food entices you to break the rule of never touching what faeries prepare to eat?I love food so much, it’s not hard to lure me with food XD. Probably some kind of faerie-made pastry or liquor !

A horrific beast has locked you in their castle. What character trait of theirs would sway you to look beyond that gruesome face and, eventually, make you fall in love?I mean, it’s not like I could easily fall in love with some nightmarish creature… (to all people that are passing by : if you are a vampire, a werewolf or another kind of creature, I am single and my DMs are open !). They know what it feels like to be rejected for what they are at core and can’t change so they never want to inflict that upon others. Plus they love books, have a big ass library so, I am not leaving this place before I have read all  the books and finally, we read together XD. 

As part of the Fae folk - What name would you tell mortals if they tried to find out yours?Annwyn

Would you rather live in the cool-glittering depths of the sea, the fragrant-green meadows or the pine-dark, blackberry-scented woods? Why?I’d rather live in the depths of the sea. I love water, I love the sea and I feel at home when I swim in it.

You’re a dragon. What do you hoard?Books ! Toi même tu sais !

You’re a witch. What is the first spell you learn?Some elemental magic using water - nooo, not how to turn it into wine ! - more like water bending !

Which painting best describes what your personal fairytale would look, feel, taste like?

La Nymphe de la Lune by Luis Ricardo Falero

A cruel king asks to marry you. Which three impossible dresses do you ask for in exchange for your hand?- A dress weaved with the very essence of dreams.- A ballgown embroidered with stars and nebulas.- Medusa’s head (so I can wear it as a breasplate on a full suit of armor. The dude better behave cause I’m gonna kick his lame ass if he tries to pull some trick on me.), good luck with this one cruel king !

Which magical item would you want to own - A magic mirror, a heart-shaped book or a golden key?A heart-shaped book. Beacause book !

Which would be worse for you - if a loved one got transformed into a fawn and was thus vulnerable and mute, or if a splinter of a devilish mirror fell into their eye and made them cold and unfeelingMetamorphosis is a brutal and cruel change but at least they could still feel things, even on a whole different scale of reality. I feel like them becoming cold and unfeeling would be worse. 

What scent would fill the air to hint that you’re near?Already answered : flowers, bergamot and pastries are my signature scent !

You leave the safety of your family’s home and go brave the dangers and adventures of the world. What do you seek - Love, Self-Fulfillment or Glory? Self-fulfillment !

I spent far too long time on this XD. But it was really fun, some very interesting questions. Thank you ! (I’ll have my revenge some day, be prepared !)

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 3/1/21

BL Metamorphosis, Vol. 3 | By Kaori Tsurutani | Seven Seas – This third volume might even be stronger than the first two. Urara wants to invite Ichinoi to the winter Comiket, but after realizing just how hellishly long the line and walk would be in that season she bails on it… and indeed drops contact for a while, which makes her feel terrible. Then, when studying for college is taking too much toll on her, she reconnects, but this only reminds her that even after growing up and living your best life, you too will eventually have to sort it all into things to keep and things to throw away. The narrative doesn’t hammer this into the reader, it’s subtle and lovely. Something to cherish. – Sean Gaffney

Gabriel Dropout, Vol. 9 | By Ukami |Yen Press – There’s no major new characters introduced here or any plotlines that are not “excuses for character-based humor,” but that’s fine, because character-based humor is what Gabriel Dropout does best. That said, there are also a few heartwarming moments here as well, particularly in the festival arc, as everyone gets separated. Gabriel is, as always, weak to physical exertion, but will still come through in a pinch. Raphael finally meets someone she can’t seem to tease in the form of Mei, and almost forms a motherly bond with her. And as for Satania and Tapris… well, no, that’s not heartwarming, but it is hilarious. This series probably has nowhere new to go, but I don’t seem to mind at all. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 26 | By Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – Most of this book is taken up with Endeavor showing our three male leads the ropes, which actually goes pretty well, and also having his daughter invite everyone over to their place for dinner, which goes a lot less well. Even if you leave out the fact that Natsuo ends up getting kidnapped by a villain with what might be the oddest quirk we’ve seen to date, the dinner itself is even more awkward than you might have imagined, and hammers home to Endeavor how much he can’t make up for the abusive father he’d been most of their lives. He needs a distraction, and we’re about to get one—Izuku’s ominous narration implies that a horrific event is coming soon. Still must-read shonen manga. – Sean Gaffney

Sweat and Soap, Vol. 5 | By Kintetsu Yamada | Kodansha Comics – This remains one of the best titles currently being released for fans of sweet romance, and I urge everyone to try to get past the “he likes to smell her sweat” premise. We get to meet the parents here—hers, at least—and discover that Asako seems to get her heavy sweating from her dad, who also seems to have her perpetually worried disposition. Fortunately, Kotaro is able to make a good impression. Then we get more of them trying to move to a place of their own, which comes with a lot of good advice for young couples trying to do this, as well as “how to look over a potential home for possible huge flaws.” And, well, the manga is still more than a little horny too, but also in a nice way. Highly recommended. – Sean Gaffney

Tono Monogatari | By Shigeru Mizuki | Drawn & Quarterly – In 1910, folklorist Kunio Yanagita published Tono Monogatari, a collection of legends from Japan’s Tono region as conveyed to him by a local storyteller, Kizen Sasaki. Nearly a hundred years later, many of the stories found in this pivotal work were adapted as short manga by Shigeru Mizuki. A folklorist in his own right, there couldn’t have been a more perfect match between creator and subject matter—Mizuki’s love for these supernatural tales and their place of origin is readily apparent from his pages. Similarly, another scholar of Japanese folklore, Zack Davisson, has now translated Mizuki’s Tono Monogatari into English, writing additional supplementary material and essays to accompany it. The volume is a treasure. Mizuki’s beautifully detailed landscapes establish Tono as the real place that it is even while the stories themselves focus on the uncanny. Reaching through time, the chilling tales are often short fragments, but effective in their brevity. – Ash Brown

By: Ash Brown

[vimesbootstheory]

hoorah, I finished the final book from the 41-50 range so I’m posting two of these today. here are some thoughts on books 41-50, as I continue to read along with the overdue podcast.

1. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

2. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

3. You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers

4. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

5. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

6. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

7. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

8. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens -- In terms of pure enjoyment, this would have ranked higher, but I've been shamed into putting it slightly lower. It's a morally simplistic, rushed, psychologically unrealistic story but dammit I do not care! I loved this. It's genuinely so funny, I laughed throughout. Also, I love a redemption arc, and this is one of THE ultimate redemption stories. I think one of the themes I'm noting while pursuing this reading project is that I'm embracing happy endings big-time. Also, love the anti-capitalist themes. It's insane how people are still throwing around "overpopulation" in classist arguments when Dickens already murdered that argument back in 1840-something.

9. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell -- Oh, the aesthetic, though! This made me want to dive into Ozark noir in a big way. I loved Ree Dolly, she's very much My Type of female character, I love scrappy women surviving poverty and being a lil butch about it and cramming an assload of determinator vibes into a tiny package. Her unreservedly affectionate friendship with Gail made me smile many times. The language was compelling without being distracting; a random favourite quirk is how it uses adjectives & verbs as nouns in reference to environmental features, e.g. referring to (I believe) melting snow as "melt". The brutality of it was great, it tread a very fine line for me where brutality against a female character can very easily veer into misogynistic and far too difficult to witness, but in this story the way it was depicted (combined with the fact that Ree is brutalized by women, not men) made it empowering to see her live through something horrific and survive. The gruesome details of, e.g. the fact that she shit herself while being beaten, and the tactile sensations when she was pulling [spoiler] up through the water, and the hunting of squirrels, that got me all snips-n-snails-n-puppy-dog-tails enthusiastic.

10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

11. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

12. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

13. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

15. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

16. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J Gaines

17. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

18. Dracula by Bram Stoker -- It's been months since I read this book (I forgot to write down my impressions at the time) but I think I can still properly attest to my opinion of it. I was expecting a much simpler story, and I was expecting it to be more laden with cliches, which would not have been the book's fault at all since it would have been the birthplace of all those cliches, but it would have been boring to read. Instead, Dracula ended up being a totally solid read, and it's given me a thorough understanding of what makes it iconic gothic literature. It does kinda feel like multiple books smushed together, in particular the first section at Dracula's castle feels so separate from everything else (and, I will say, it was my favourite part of the book... always a bummer when enjoyment peaks early). I really liked the two female leads and their friendship, though I'm not a fan of what happens to Lucy and how little it seems to affect her best friend. Anyway, solid read, spooky in a lovely familiar way, I liked it and I get why it's beloved.

19. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway -- This was an oddly comfy book to read, for me, which might not have been what was intended but that's OK. It's very short and light on plot and you can definitely see all the conflict coming -- like, if you're not going to bring the fish on board, and you're in the ocean, of course shark are going to show up? I don't fish but is that not something you have to account for regularly? I enjoyed all his reflections on DiMaggio and his bone spurs, and the wistful, one-sided communication between him and the fish he regrets pursuing even as the pursuit continues. Also, the relationship between the old man and the boy is really heartwarming, and I love that the town he lives in is ultimately so supportive, I don't know why but I assumed that they would treat the old man poorly. Reminded me of all the most grounded bits of Life of Pi, in a good way.

20. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

21. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

22. World War Z by Max Brooks

23. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut -- So, I'm very annoyed with myself about this one, because I forgot that I had not written up a blurb about Cat's Cradle until months after I finished it, and so much as happened since then (I finished it in 2019, at time of writing we are over two months into the 2020 covid-19 pandemic) that I legitimately had to google Cat's Cradle to remind myself what the plot was. So I definitely am not going to remember minutiae that impacted my opinion one way or the other. I remember it feeling very surreal, and the post-apocalyptic ending is very sudden. It has a lot of novel ideas and some approaches to philosophy that make me feel a bit too young (or just the wrong generation, more accurately) to really Get It. It was certainly novel, though, and passably fun. I'm so annoyed 'cause I'm sure I had Thoughts at the time but they're just gone.

24. Eddie and the Cruisers by P.F. Kluge

25. The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr & E.B. White

26. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

27. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

28. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw -- I love a story about class conflict, with a URL like “vimesbootstheory” how could it be otherwise. This did not gel with me as much as it should, though, simply because it took too long for me to figure out what the play was trying to say, essentially whether it was condemning Eliza or Higgins. Probably due to its many adaptations, I had been expecting Eliza and Higgins to get together in the end, so I was very arresteddevelopmentgoodforher.jpg about the actual conclusion to the story. That bit at the very end where Higgins is all, nah I heard what she said but she’s totally going to do my chores anyway, she’s just putting on a front... blegh. Fuck Higgins, fuck everything about that character, and fuck him for making phonetics look bad. That’s another thing, ooh. When I first started reading this I was anticipating much more time spent on the process of teaching Eliza how to “speak properly”. I was under the mistaken impression that “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” was from Pygmalion, rather than My Fair Lady. And not gonna lie, I was a little excited to see this kind of proto-speech language pathology (though not pathological, since there is nothing pathologically wrong with having an accent suggestive of a lower class background) process play out in play form. Hell, I’d have taken any form of actual phonetics discussion. I was pretty disappointed when that whole process was completely skipped over, to be honest. Felt like a cop-out.

29. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

30. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe -- Let's be honest, it's weird that this is even on this list. Why not a collected works of Poe's poems, or a selection of his stories? No? Just the one poem? Uh, OK. Look, it's a good poem. Love the metre, love the rhyming. Love the idea of this guy who knows perfectly well that the bird only ever says "nevermore" but he keeps asking it questions to which "nevermore" is a hurtful and/or infuriating answer. That's all I got.

31. Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers -- I group this one together in my head with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as they are both children's books that were adapted by superior films and honestly, if you have a choice between the movie and the book, I would recommend the movie. This is also spoiled a bit by Travers' legacy of being a grumpy guss, even though her enemy was Disney and we're all learning these days that "ugh fuck Disney" is a valid take. Mary Poppins is better than Oz in that it has more book-exclusive content so there's more novelty to it than just reading a novelization of the movie, but worse in that Poppins, like her creator, is a grumpy guss. Her vanity was also really irritating to read about, like why do we have to condemn women for liking their own appearance?

32. Dune by Frank Herbert

33. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum

34. Tiny Alice by Edward Albee

35. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

36. Medea by Euripides

37. Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

38. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

39. The War of The Worlds by HG Wells

40. Don't Go Back to School by Kio Stark

41. The Awakening by Kate Chopin -- I compared this to Persuasion while reading it, since it's another old-timey romance where not a lot happens and the prose is pretty boring. Edna is more likeable than Anne, however, and the lengths she goes to claim the sort of agency that I take for granted every day is a pleasant surprise at times. Love that she had the balls to just fuckin move out and she doesn't suffer any violence from her husband as a result. Love how she's just like, I'm discovering independence and the first thing I wanna do is stay up past my bed time in this hammock outside. It felt like Edna aspired to... my life, basically? Which was validating, in a way. But then she kills herself, and kind of undercuts that whole thing. Seriously, what an abrupt and weird ending, I actually looked up a plot summary afterwards because I was so thrown when I got to the end, that it was actually the end. Didn't entirely understand what had happened to Robert, or that she had committed suicide until I clarified it with some external sources. By that point I was pretty bored, though, so that's partly just me letting details escape me through inattention.

42. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

43. The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

44. The Stand by Stephen King

45. Grendel by John Gardner

46. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

47. Persuasion by Jane Austen

48. Beowulf by Unknown

49. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

50. Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James -- I was not looking forward to writing this little reaction blurb because once I got over my reader's block about 1/6th of the way in, reading fifty shades wasn't the worst reading experience? Like don't get me wrong, it was bad, but it was bad in an entertaining way. And I don't think it's accurate to say that I didn't have any interest in knowing what was going to happen next? So I was pretty worried that the dread fifty shades would end up embarrassingly high up this list, at least higher than The Stand (the other contender for Book It Took Me The Longest To Read Because Anger). Thankfully, in these little blurbs I've taken care to note things I found valuable about even the books I did not care much for, and nope, Fifty Shades really does belong at the bottom. I think its most grievous overarching issue is the gap between author intent and what's actually on the page. If this were actually a narrative about a sheltered young woman escaping a relationship with an abuser who confuses abuse with an interest in BDSM, that would accomplish partial forgiveness. But it isn't, so it doesn't. I've already mentioned this in another post but I can't get over this -- why does Anastasia not know anything about technology in the 2010s? Why did she wait so long to get a computer and an email address? Also, if I never read the phrasing "all [noun] and [noun]" as a descriptor again it will be too soon.

[levisqueaks]

For the ask game: 1, 13, 22

WOOT an ask!

1) first Fandom or pairing... I wrote a lot of original characters in various earth settings so its a little hard to pinpoint. Beyond the Psychopathic Jedi stint that brought you into my life I think my first Fandom was Power Rangers. I wrote a lot of like original characters inserted bullshit so that was all horrifying. I think my first pairing was probably Dustin with an original character before I started playing with gay characters? I recall reading and enjoying a lot of gay power ranger fiction though so I am sure I did lots of time force and Ninja storm before I published. I know I deleted some of my first stories off the pit.

13) I thought about this and then went through all of the tropes list I have and I'm trying really hard to think of one I wouldn't write. I don't like non-con but I've written it before? I wouldn't do a long term non con detailed fic but I've certainly included hints/trauma and stuff. Writing a protagonist being okay with racism and slavery is probably the closest I can think of. But again, I literally wrote a fanfiction eons ago about someone who had been kidnapped and tortured/raped/made into a slave and escaping it so.

Actually I wouldn't willingly write graphic rape of a child/infant and would be hesitant to write even moderately detailed accounts. Physical abuse I've written but sexual abuse is a no-go.

22) All. The. Fucking. Time. I cry horrifically whenever I emotionally torture my characters. The last two chapters of Metamorphosis had me sobbing like a 2 year old.

[wawerrell]

Fruits of the Summer

My grandmother’s clearest memories of childhood revolve around fruit. She and her sisters would arrive at the farmhouse for the summer—“Oh, here are my girls!”—and her grandmother, who read to them by the light of a kerosene lamp, would shower her with attention, love, books, figs, and peaches. True love, she says, is how her grandfather treated her grandmother: he ran the first fresh fig of the season to the house for her. Nana found and married a man who cared as deeply as she did about fresh fruit; Papa was filled with joy when, at the height of the Depression, he got an orange for Christmas.

The king of all fruits is the peach, my favorite taste in the world. Each summer, we buy peaches in the upstate of South Carolina, where the peaches are firm and tasty and full, and I share a peach with my grandmother. For the first peach of the season, Nana injects a particular sense of humor into T.S. Eliot’s famous line: “Do I dare eat a peach?”

(When Billy Collins came to visit Hopkins, he accused the Romantics and their heirs of having taken the humor and the sex out of poetry; Wordsworth, he claimed, focused on the splendor of the grass at the expense of the erection. Collins, as he spoke to our student body, took particular issue with T.S. Eliot: “’Do I dare eat a peach?’” he recited, before pushing his glasses onto his bald head. “What’s your problem, man?”)

This summer, my parents stopped by Dori Sanders’ peach farm by the side of the road in York County, where the history is as ripe as the peaches. Take the Storytelling Rock, for instance, an ancient rock that resembles diverging trees. At fifteen feet tall, the freestanding rock casts a long shadow, in the shade of which Ms. Sanders and her family would trade stories and tales. Sanders’ farm was one of the first and one of the only Black-owned properties in South Carolina. Unlike many Black families after “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman spearheaded the post-Reconstruction State Constitution, her father, a rural elementary schoolteacher, was able to buy the land outright and was not a sharecropper.

In addition to her wonderful cookbooks, Ms. Sanders has written several novels—and her first, Clover, won the Lillian Smith Book Award in 1990. The award is given to a Southern book of high literary merit that touches upon “the problem we all live with” lucidly and with understanding. (Lillian Smith, the prize’s namesake, is one of the essential thinkers in the years leading up to the Civil Rights Movement; her meditations and memories in The Killers of the Dream are among the most beautiful and heartbreaking. Her novel Strange Fruit is similarly bracing and horrific, touching as it does upon the steeped taboos around interracial love.)

Reading her books and eating the peaches from her farm, I think of more than just Eliot and strange fruit. As I slice the fruit and throw away the pit, the finale of Nina Simone’s “Four Women” plays in my head: “What do they call me? My name is Peaches.”

In I Put a Spell on You, Nina Simone discusses the inspiration for “Four Women” as an exploration of the type of self-hatred that needles its way into Pecola Breedlove, the internalized racism of beauty standards and perception: “The women in the song are black, but their skin tones range from light to dark and their ideas of beauty and their own importance are deeply influenced by that. All the song did was to tell what entered the minds of most black women in America when they thought about themselves: their complexions, their hair—straight, kinky, natural, which? And what other women thought of them. Black women didn’t know what the hell they wanted because they were defined by other things they didn’t control, and until they had the confidence to define themselves they’d be stuck in the same mess forever—that was the point the song made.”

“Four Women” is made up of four monologues; the melody is simple and repetitive, and the monologists have distinctive voices, stories, and skin tones. Autobiographically, the song plays a significant role in the arc of Nina’s career; in her fabulous book The Sound of Soul, Phyl Garland lingers on the momentous occasion of this song’s release, noting that it came alongside the singer’s own metamorphosis. Nina, she wrote, “has abandoned the straight-haired image of her supper club days to wear a natural hairstyle.”

At the end of her monologue, each woman asks, “What do they call me?”—making the woman the object, not the subject, and suggesting that these names came from the outside in, reiterating that naming belongs not to the named but to the namer. The first woman to sing is “Aunt Sarah,” perhaps a reference to Mammie and Auntie; she is black and her hair is wooly. Then there’s Saffronia—a name derived from “saffron,” fitting for a High-Yellow daughter of rape. “Sweet Thing,” whose skin is tan and whose hair is fine, explains that she belongs to anyone “who has money to buy.”

Peaches—“My skin is brown, my manner is tough.”—is the fourth and loudest woman to sing. There is something different about her from her very first word: “My,” which she intones with a vicious and determined possessiveness. Throughout the monologue, there is an incredible torrent of anger simmering not beneath but all around. The central Discordia concors, what Dr. Johnson called “the most heterogeneous ideas yoked by violence together,” is the clash between “Peaches” and the overall tone: “I’m awfully bitter these days / because my parents were slaves.”

Jay Z takes the opening chords of “Four Women” for the beat of “The Story of O.J.” and splices “My skin is…” between notes. Like “Four Women,” “The Story of O.J.”—only half-experienced if you just listen; the music video is essential to understanding the motivations behind and messages of the song—starts with childlike simplicity, the unsettling sound of forced cheerfulness that we have come to associate more with the dystopian Bioshock and Fallout than with fond childhood memories. Like the almost-saccharine “Run, Rabbit, Run” in the opening scene of Get Out, the melody does more to alarm us than comfort us.

Jay Z frames his song as an old cartoon: the title screen is a cotton plantation, the characters drawn as actors in blackface—dark, dark skin and light, light lips. Like Disney’s Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, the world seems to dance; buildings lean to and fro, bales of cotton cheerfully hop into the mill to become Klan robes, chained slaves bob up and down like birds on a wire. The first character we see is an adaptation of Nina Simone, portrayed as both an African queen—the proud Mende woman she dressed as in Harlem, for instance—and an anthropomorphic caricature.

The constant refrain lists a variety of pigmentation and class and “race feeling.” Despite their differences—“Light n-, dark n-, faux n-, real n-, rich n-, poor n-, house n-, field n-”—they all share the same fate: “Still a n-.” Images complement the lyrics: militant black power—“still a n-”; Olympic athlete—“still a n-.”

Like Nina’s four women, these disparate types all must reconcile with the fact that there is no running from their own blackness: “My only sin,” as Louis sang, “is in my skin.” Jay Z brings up O.J. Simpson, namesake of the song, early on and only very briefly: “’I’m not Black! I’m O.J.,’” he quotes the infamous football player, before rolling his eyes and saying, “OK.” Like Oedipus, the faster you try to outrun reality, destiny, fate—or drive away in a white Bronco—the faster that fate will find you.

In The Wire, Stringer Bell tries to break out of the world he was born into by attending finance courses at his local community college. He studies real estate and equity; he shares his ideas of legal expansion with a glimmer in his eye. Yet for all of his attempts to outrun his own background, that world outside of his own pushes him back and lynches him with the ropes of his own ambition. You can launder money, but you can’t launder your identity—as the waiter makes painfully clear to D’Angelo in the fancy restaurant.

“Still a n-”—the last line Jay Z raps—are imagined as the dying words of a lynched Jaybo, his cartoon alter ego, while a young white boy, a spectator of and participant in the hanging, smiles for the camera.

The sequence that struck me comes after the first catalogue of “types”: Jaybo eats a watermelon and spits out the seeds the way that Buckwheat or Bojangles may have. The pervasive watermelon stereotype brings to mind Jacqueline Woodson’s beautiful writing—not just in Brown Girl Dreaming but also in her response to Daniel Handler’s horrible joke at the National Book Award ceremony—and, of course, Flannery O’Connor. What Woodson describes—a song “illustrated with caricatures of sleepy-looking black people sitting by trees, grinning and eating watermelon”—is the only background that makes The Grandmother’s joke in A Good Man is Hard to Find a joke: the punchline hinges on a racist assumption that any Black person would eat a watermelon labeled “E.A.T.”

More moving and exhaustive, however, is O’Connor’s short story “The Artificial N-,” in which Mr. Head and his grandson, Nelson, come face-to-face with stereotypes that they did not create, but daily perpetuate. Early in the story, Nelson does not recognize a black man—he cannot puzzle out why his grandfather sees the man as either unique or different; to Nelson, he just appears to be a well-to-do man. After the Black man gets off the train, Mr. Head explains to the man across the aisle that the gentleman was “[Nelson’s] first n-.” After they become lost in the Inferno-like labyrinthine maze of Atlanta—two country bumpkins in the big city without any Virgil to guide them—they encounter the “artificial n”: a lawn-jockey, a representation of absolute human misery in the inhuman and inanimate.

The forced smile, a “watermelon grin,” so to speak, appears unsettling rather than humorous. O’Connor’s use of the passive voice and her literal description of a smile—“He was meant to look happy because his mouth was stretched up at the corners but the chipped eye and the angle he was cocked at gave him a wild look of misery instead.”—combine to produce a heartbreaking rictus of cheerfulness, like the enslaved and transmuted inhabitants of the family estate in Get Out. And, like the opening bars of “The Story of O.J.,” the smile so badly fits the lawn jockey that it alarms and alienates Mr. Head, Nelson, and the reader.

And yet it is this “artificial n-” that brings Mr. Head his first moment of clarity in the story, his first opportunity to receive mercy. In the moment of transfixion, the grandfather and grandson, previously wildly disparate beings, are unified: “The two of them stood there with their necks forward at almost the same angle and their shoulders curved in almost exactly the same way and their hands trembling identically in their pockets. Mr. Head looked like an ancient child and Nelson like a miniature old man.”

Richly, their choreographed movement is modeled unconsciously after the lawn jockey. The lawn jockey, “about Nelson’s size,” “was pitched forward at an unsteady angle”—just the way that grandfather and grandson lean forward. And just as Mr. Head and Nelson chiastically coalesce in age, “it was not possible to tell if the artificial Negro were meant to be young or old; he looked to miserable to be either.” Visually, it as though grandfather and grandson lean forward to meet the “artificial n-,” leaning forward himself, in the middle: a kind of mirror that cuts through appearance and shows things as they really are. In this moment, they reverse roles and become united—as old and young and, for the briefest and most fleeting of moments, even black and white.

Looking at misery incarnate—or at least in plaster—opens Mr. Head to mercy, yet he rejects it and pushes it away. Rather than share with his grandson what he had felt, Mr. Head “heard himself say, ‘They ain’t got enough real ones here. They got to have an artificial one.’” Flannery O’Connor deliberately distances these words from his thoughts; rather than simply “saying,” Mr. Head “hears himself say.”

As the grandfather and grandson step off the train—home again, home again—that mercy comes again to Mr. Head, who cannot deny it or shut it out. Then, under the trees and the sky, Mr. Head “understood that [mercy] grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children… He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair… He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own….”

Mr. Head sees suffering in the lawn jockey and in himself; he is given the mercy to see clearly even as the paint washes off of the plaster and the jockey’s eyes crack and become mere vacuums. As Aeschylus wrote, “wisdom / comes alone through suffering,” that “grace comes somehow violent.” The wisdom is, alas, lost on Nelson, who breaks the spell and closes the story—the lawn jockey filed away as merely something he has no need to encounter again. For Mr. Head, the lawn jockey provided him his ticket to heaven: “since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.”