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May 2016

Dexter is Dead… again.

Ok been letting my blogging slip for a while because of this and that excuse, work, travel, romance, all that shit. But that’s all gone now, back to business as usual.
I recently finished the last of the Dexter series, if you don’t know already the blog is a play on the title of the first book ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’. And although the series isn’t what inspired me to become a writer myself it has influenced a lot of thematic choices I later came to love.
So needless to say I’m a big fan of the show and then I just got done reading all eight of the books and it’s fair to say I really liked them since I read them back to back, which is pretty is pretty rare for me. I think the last time I did that was when I first discovered pulp and read all the Philip Marlowe books by Raymond Chandler one if not THE godfather of literary pulp/noir, whatever you wanna call it. I personally think he beats the pants off of Dashiell Hammet although I love me some Sam Spade and I really enjoyed the first Parker novel I read by Richard Stark I think it was. I was actually thinking of filling the hole left by Dexter with some Parker.

Parker is like a more amoral version of Philip Marlowe I guess, like half way between Dexter and Sam Spade maybe. He’s just a straight up, hard edge career criminal. I was almost shocked when I read the hunter. There’s a scene where he kills this innocent woman by mistake and that wasn’t really the problem it was the way he just brushes it off, like ‘oops’ and I thought even Dexter would have had a moment of contemplation over that. And that’s why that character is really memorable, someone so focused on what they want that they burn everyone and anything in their way and feel nothing for them. A really powerful character I thought. It’s like you’re reading this like “Am I the baddie?”

Ok so I really enjoyed the Dexter series, I felt it flagged towards the end a little, like Lindsay was just in no mood to continue it so just ended it. I was a little disappointed by the prison sequence (Oh yeah spoilers Dexter goes to prison ha-ha), because I expected him to shank a fool or whatever but it was pretty boring monotonous, nothing really happens.

I liked the change of pace, overall I thought the books were weird because they became less about serial killing and more about Dexter’s life getting in the way of his serial killing but I guess that’s realistic and a great parralel for real life getting in the way of the things you love.
I’m not sure if this actually is the last book because the ending was very and obviously intentionally open ended. And the show also played around with an open ending although mercifully they thought better of that because that show really started to drag. Looking back having read the books I can see it was dragging its heels as soon as it left the starting block of the first season. They really really really shouldn’t have killed off the ice truck killer. He’s a pivotal character in the books, well sort of, but I think that was a mistake. They could have dragged out that familial conflict into later seasons allowing them to not have to rely on really over used tropes and shameless filler.

I liked the show for what it was, it was almost an expanded universe, exploring things around his dad and his mom, they took the books and ran with them and it was very entertaining. it got me through a lot of stressful shit at uni when the new Dexter ep came out. I could sit and watch it and talk to my friends about it

Anyway, enough of that bullshit, what I really wanted to talk about was that I really do feel like there’s a Dexter size hole in my life. So I was thinking of doing a fanfic of sorts, a continuation surrounding Dexter’s grown up daughter Lily-Anne. Essentially I want to get deep in the shit and explore some of the stuff I think Lindsay shied away from and fill in the blanks myself.

Because I think I mentioned in the past that the Dexter lore has some supernatural elements, he essentially #spoiler alert# squares off with a demon or old god or whatever in the third book and then after that it was just dropped like an old guy’s jock strap in the men’s locker room at the gym. I think it must have got panned or received a lot of criticism for taking what was essentially a mystery/crime thriller book into the Dan Brown illuminati/Alex Jones territory. And honestly I have nothing against that sort of shit. I really liked that book, it was such a jarring change of pace I was a little disappointed it wasn’t gone into in more detail or at the very least touched upon at least one more time. It was just sort of side-lined. Just like how in the books he’s promised to train the fledgling killer kids he’s raising. He never gets around to it, so I want my story take on that to be the result of his inaction.

I was thinking of having the ancient society from book three come back and hunt down Dexter’s progeny to harvest their dark passengers. Structure it the same way as the other books, have her as like a crime blogger who investigates murders and gets tangled up in this web of intrigue because of her innate morbid curiosity. Then out of nowhere the murders seem to be spelling out a message to her. I essentially want to make almost a copy of the first book, almost an ‘homage’ force awakens that bitch. That’s about all the spoilers I want to give away. I may turn this into like a fun side project of short novellas or full blown novels maybe if I can get in contact with Jeff Lindsay, I’ve exchanged a total of three words with him on twitter so I’m in like flin motherfucker ;).
I dunno it just seems like there’s so much that could have come from the Dexter mythos, it just feels unfinished, unloved, like Lindsay was just tired of that headspace, which I can totally understand. I think Dexter was a character I related to in a scary way and I was very invested in his struggles and I just think it didn’t end quite right. I mean I never expected him to live happily ever after, but why not? Yeah it’s fiction and bad guys always have to pay but do they? Do they in real life? Not really, so why should fiction have to conform to that standard?

I just thought it would be interesting to keep the series going with a woman at the helm, especially in this current political climate. I could see myself having a lot of fun with that. I’m not sure if I should do it for nanowrimo because I already had some lovecraftian thrillery type stuff lined up for that or maybe something odd and lynchian, completely surreal and off the wall. But we’ll see if I can come up with a synopsis in time. I might just start those other things as soon as I’ve released every chapter of gs.
Anyway my facebook ban should be lifted soon and I’ll be posting more shit on there and on twitter, I have to get my thumb out of my ass and reignite my social media platform, reanimate that sucker.

Peace out my african brothers and have a killer day ;).

 

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Chapter 4 Every day is like Sunday

Ok finally got the latest chapter properly edited at great expense to me I may add haha. As always do yo extreme paranoia and neatfreakedness this is but a snippet of the whole chapter which is enormously long. I’m almost finished the book at large, and I may go back and break up some of the chapters so that people feel smarter when they read it “Look ma I read a whole chapter, aint I just Albert Hemmingway junior?”. But no seriously, it’s almost done in it’s delicious raw form ready for editing. It’s shaping up to be around 80k give or take a few thousand words.
Anyway I hope these changes tickle your fancy and if you want to read everything out so far you can find them on inkitt in a lovely mobile format for all your doodads by following this link;

‘Every day is like Sunday’
~

On the edge of town, a sign read ‘Sage Valley – Population 979’. Halogen lights burned cold with a tinny buzzing sound that was both soothing and nauseating.  Early morning was shaking its head and wondering what had happened. It was dark, the air was thick and electrifying. A gas station sign flickered on and off; it was empty, a dead time. The cold concrete forecourt stood bare and desolate and dirty and drab. Cricket sounds etcetera etcetera.

The stale, sterile light inside the gas station lit everything with an off-colour, sickly blue tint. It was just a small town gas station, like the kind you’d see in any crappy slasher movie: a one storey affair with a minimart inside, stocked with essential corn and meat-based snacks and energy drinks, the kind that turned your piss green and soupy.

“Daryl! You better not be sleeping again. Anyone else steals any gas I’m gonna take it out of your ass!” A booming, cigar-scarred voice came from somewhere in the back, through the thin corkboard walls of the gas station. A young man, with his feet up on the counter, slid the magazine covering his pock-marked face off one eye and opened it. He fixed his chair to the upright position, surreptitiously letting the magazine fall into his half-cupped hands. He gave an ever so effortless yawn.

“Shut up, you old fuck! I’m still living! Nobody out here!” he said, in a semi-raised voice, which he then lowered to address himself. “Gotta be four in the morning. No one needs gas in this goddamn town no more. Everyone driving those piece of shit roller-skate cars they got.”

Daryl rearranged himself in his seat and got as comfortable as he could get with his eyes open, reclining only slightly before pausing to look around and take a whiff of the cool night air cut with the smell of disinfectant. On top of the latent smells of puke and piss, there was a definitive lingering scent of cheap booze: burn your gut worse than drinking straight from the gas pump, but it was cheaper to drink from the bottle.

He resigned himself to the fact that nothing was going on. The roads were dead and dark and he rationalised a resting of the eyes, letting his heavy lids close and his vision become hazy as he blinked at the transparent glass doors of the minimart. Just as he hit the point of no return with his dozing, the doors parted soundlessly and then closed again, giving him pause as to whether he saw anything at all.

His eyes opened and rolled to attention as if he were waking from a coma. He could have sworn he saw someone come in. He strained to hear: padding, damp noises. A stray wandering off the street drawn by the smell of stale complex carbohydrates?

He straightened in his seat and stepped back into his body. He looked around. “Err, can I help you?”

A rustling sound, cans rattling; instant foreboding crossed the brow beneath his trucker cap. A cold damp grease formed where he had rested the magazine while he was sleeping. Sweat rolled off his forehead now as he felt the urgency of being alone. “Hello?”

Sounds of gumming and biting, ripping, crinkling: a dog for sure. He curled around the counter, picking up a tire-thumping bat from under his seat. He walked briskly to the front of the counter. Reaching the door, all his nervous energy left him with a cough. And he became lifeless and limp, trying to hold the bat firmly in a clammy palm. It dangled by his side like a twig.

“Who’s there?” Daryl called out, like all those clichés in the movies. And he cursed himself for falling into that trap. But a new, sudden fear of the unknown twisted in his guts now and he felt compelled to ask.

The scuttling sound of bare feet on linoleum sent a cold shiver up his spine and a dry gob of spittle down his throat. The noise moved deeper towards the back of the store. He felt his feet dragging him listlessly in the direction of the sound, the bat swinging at his shins.

“Hello?” he called out again, groping at the wet walls of his sanity, trying to come up with any number of reasonable conclusions to this event. A dog? A cat? A racoon? A crazy homeless guy? A drunk chick? Some hungry pothead or all of the above?

He turned down the snack isle, which was oddly paired with feminine hygiene products. He rested his shaking hand on the side of the metal shelves. He forced himself to look around them to where the noise emanated. His body felt numb. Pulses of adrenaline coursed through his brain and sent shocks all the way down to his fingertips.

Hunched over a small mound of assorted snacks and raw or semi-raw meat products, was what appeared to be a child. He saw its naked back. The skin looked cold and drawn and wet, like a fish or a lizard. It was so pale it looked blue. The child hunched over the food, making soft sopping gnashing sounds.

~

For the rest of the chapter mosey on down to inkitt sil vous plait;

‘Every day is like Sunday’

 

 

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“Safe spaces”

After what I think is maybe my fourth ban from facebook I think a rant is in order.
Recently I’ve had a lot of life piled on me keeping me away from all this wonderful stuff, not that I’m complaining. Most of it if look at my facebook feed is beautiful adventures with the most important person in my life. A bountiful expression of love for a person who’s filled my days with more rapturous happiness than I thought possible (She reads my blog fyi :P).
But some of it is my day job, dieting, excercise and arguing/trolling people on facebook who can’t seem to seperate their political views from their ever so precious feels and delicate sensisibilities. Mostly Bernie supporters, I have nothing really against Bernie, I just think his followers are a lot of insipid cultists who wallow in self pity and blame all their problems on ‘the man’. And like him don’t really understand economics and how his policies can’t really work in a capitalist system. So they try and downplay the socialism, but there’s really know way his policies could work without a socialist system. Which in america seems unfeasible.

I got for what is known on facebook as “Hate speech” which pretty much equates to any coloquial slur or shortening of a word. I said tranny the first time and I didn’t use it as a slur, just for what it is a shortening. But I get it’s un-pc for anyone but a tranny to say tranny. Then I guess I was on like a hate speech watch list and I don’t know if it was a bot or an especially vindictive facebook sjw. But it seemed like my entire feed was gone over with a fine tooth comb to weedle out the slightest hint of ‘wrongthink’.

I then was found guilty of using the colloquial insult of “faggot” I know what a crime, what a cishet oppressor I am for using a word that offends people. Well then I got banned again and again. I got banned for like one day then when I was reinstated they found something else to ban me for, this time three days. Then the same thing happened again, this time it was a week.
This time I made the mistake of commenting on some propaganda I saw on facebook and I quoted it. It was some anti-Trump propaganda where it accused him of saying racist slurs like “Beaner” and “Wetback” and “Anchor baby”. Well the last one isn’t a slur, it’s actually just a term.
All I said where “When did Trump say beaner?” Banned for thirty days. seriously?

Just quoting a video is hate speech now? I mean who are they protecting here? Do they honestly think they can stop racism/homophobia/etc just by stopping people saying the related words?
And even saying that I think back to the ban bossy campaign and it just sends me reeling when I think about the Orwellian idea of newspeak. If you don’t know ban bossy was a group of feminist morons including Facebook’s own Sheryle Sandberg who blamed women not getting ceo jobs on being called ‘Bossy’ as children. Which goes without saying is beyond asinine.
But, the idea of newspeak is to limit speech for the purposes of limiting thought. How can you speak out against something you disagree with if you don’t have the words to do it? Not that I think insults or racist slurs are good for the effort of changing things to fit the ideologies of a racist. What I don’t like is the idea of controlling speech for the purposes of controlling thought. Forcing some pc orthodoxy on everyone.
You can’t speak freely on facebook because you can’t know what will be listed as “Hate speech” next, so you just have to walk on eggshells and watch what you say on what is supposed to be a free and open social media site.
But even saying that now there are people who will read this and say something as retarded as “You’re only against pc culture cos you wanna be free to be racist”. To which I would respond “Yes, I do want to be free to be as racist as I want, which is not at all”.
I’ve literally seen this response, there was a video of right wingers saying pc culture makes them afraid to speak for fear of being called a racist. To which all the liberals responded by calling them racist proving their points perfectly.
Racism/sexism have no meaning in this generation, none at all they’re just thought ending cliche’s, words used to silence a person you don’t agree with. Like for instance… Trump.
I’d challenge anyone to link me to anything racist he’s said, any slur or generaliazation, you wont be able to find one. The label racist is only thrown at him because he’s against illegal immigration. When they call him racist, they’re trying to shut him up and make people afraid to support him. It’s standard form propaganda. And it’s the same with anyone that disagrees with this rampant pc culture. No disagreement is allowed, you’re either with them or against them.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say which is standard for a rant I guess, just butthurt and need to bitch. I’m just sort of saddened by facebooks pandering and greed. First they limited free speech by charging people for reach, which is disgusting enough but now these Orwellian speech codes. I hope they tank, I hope a new site comes up and demolishes them because freedom speech is the only the cure for this.
Safe spaces and pc culture will only make us weaker and stupider as a species which only benefits invading aliens or maybe the illuminati or whatever haha.

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