Or I might do some spamming but I’ve been blackpilled on that for a while now since I keep getting banned and spamming on gab or twitter or minds is basically a waste of time. And even spamming on facebook maybe five people see it unless you throw some money behind it and even then it’s just some fucking asshole telling me I need an editor for my raw manuscript, no fucking shit I need an editor. So fucking constructive, it’s why I hate writing groups. Most writers are assholes, myself included, they don’t want to help you, they want to stand on your face and make a slamdunk haha. Those groups are cancerous, full of bullshit political shit and crabs in a bucket that want to get together to justify their own mediocrity.
Or I might do some spamming but I’ve been blackpilled on that for a while now since I keep getting banned and spamming on gab or twitter or minds is basically a waste of time. And even spamming on facebook maybe five people see it unless you throw some money behind it and even then it’s just some fucking asshole telling me I need an editor for my raw manuscript, no fucking shit I need an editor. So fucking constructive, it’s why I hate writing groups. Most writers are assholes, myself included, they don’t want to help you, they want to stand on your face and make a slamdunk haha. Those groups are cancerous, full of bullshit political shit and crabs in a bucket that want to get together to justify their own mediocrity.
Hey there what’s up?
Don’t really have much to talk about this week, just been working and watching the expanse which I still really love. It’s just really well written and every character that annoys when they’re first introduced has grown on you by the end of the season and I really love that.
They introduced this ‘stronk empowered wamen’ character in season 2 who just seemed really generic and annoying at the start of the season and now I really like her arch. They just really developed and rounded her out from her introduction. She like starts off as this generic badass and then she becomes sort of a fish out of water character to a rebel and then comes full circle to be really bad ass again but by then I was really rooting for her. I mean yeah it doesn’t really make sense for her to be ability to beat the shit out of grown men especially considering she’s a martian and supposed to have weaker bones and she’s fighting earthers who live under higher gravity. But martian marines are supposed to train under higher gravity and she isn’t tiny and skinny, she does look kind of built a little. Not overly so but it’s more believable and then of course she’s most effective when wearing power armor.
All round, I’m just loving the show and the world and the characters, just another great- I was about to say show on amazon but then I googled it and apparently it was originally on scy fy but then got cancelled after season 3. Which just seems fucking crazy to me, unless it dips in quality in season 3 dramatically to a point where you would drop the whole show which would have to be drastic I’d say it was budget related because looking at the visuals in this show it cannot be cheap to make. So if it’s pulling in good to fair numbers I can see why it might get axed by scy fy for just not be cost effective. But I love it and I hope it keeps going on amazon like Bosch and Sneaky Pete.
I also watched the Shazam movie and it was ok, I don’t really want to do a review on it because I didn’t really have strong feelings about it in either direction. Just a pretty solid fun movie. I didn’t think it was as good as aquaman which I think is the top of the shitpile of modern dc movies.
The story is basic, the characters are ok, the action is good, I liked the feel and the tone and how it really puts you in the ‘Big’ mindset where you’re like ‘What would I do in this situation?’. I think it takes the perspective of the audience and makes it a lot more relate-able than other comic book movies.
But I think the message of the movie is shitty and half baked and it suffers from the same syndrome most movies do today where it has no real middle. It’s like some surgical nightmare where a chick has huge fake tits and a huge fake ass but their waste is too small to support them both and they just snap in the middle under the pressure haha.
The middle of this movie is basically one five minute montage and then all we’re left with is a really bloated first and third act. This is the only reason aquaman is top for me because it was more balanced, it had a really satisfying second that made the film feel more like a journey. It felt like a movie from the eighties and it was great.
There really just isn’t enough meat to the story or the middle bit to carry us through to the end, which is why it’s just ok.
And the reason I said I hated the message is because the message is basically “family” in air quotes but then proceeds to totally shit on the family. Because the message isn’t really family, it’s totally anti-family as it represents real blood related families as shitty people who hate and treat you like shit and abandon you because someone else can do a better job. Your actual parents will neglect you and fuck you up and you’ll kill them or forget they exist and instead embrace a group of ethnically diverse strangers as your ‘real’ family to take on the big bad guy who had his real family screw him up.
It’s very subversive and I don’t take kindly to this narrative that ‘anyone can be your family’ any group of random people cannot be a family. A family is defined by blood relation, any other definition is an attack on the family, attempting to water down and erase the meaning of the word, which if you’ve read 1984 isn’t a good thing. Words are nice, keeping their meaning is important, so let’s stop trying to undermine them and reinvent for a silly political agenda.
The most healthy and enriching environment for a child is still the nuclear family, no matter what some trendy buzzfeed article might say, having a mom and a dad is still much better than not having them on average. I’m not trying to say some people can’t be shitty parents or single parents can’t be great, or foster kids can’t turn out great. I’m talking about averages, not one off, I’m talking about the rule not the exceptions that prove the rule. You coming to me and saying ‘but I was adopted and blah blah blah’ doesn’t prove anything, you’re one of like a billion people, your anecdotal evidence is meaningless when compared to the stats of the thousands of other people that didn’t get so lucky.
Anyway rant over and I don’t think a review is necessary, it’s ok. Pretty standard for comic book movies today just being alright. Kids will love it but hopefully wont internalise the subversive message.
I don’t really think it’s worth a cinema visit because the budget isn’t that amazing, it’s sort of a smaller movie, you’re not gonna get as much out of it as you would seeing the avengers in the cinema. But it’s worth a stream.
Anyway, got proofreading to do for the latest chapter of Cur 2, didn’t get much done this week because work stuff completely kicked my ass but hopefully next week will be different, probably wont be though haha.
See you…
–
I just sat there for a moment looking down at it, turning the would-be weapon in my hand, getting a feel for the weight. The weight of his words swished around in my head. I didn’t have to ask if everything was true; it just made some sort of insane sense, a puzzle piece falling into place.
This was what I waiting for.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Whatever you want.” Brodie—my brother—smiled that prepackaged smile.
A lapping feeling of black waves poured over me, covering me, feet first. It was like a dream, like a wish realized. A whole dark world opened up before me, welcoming me like some returning hero from long exile.
I was home, whatever that meant.
I went from a sad emo only child with a serial killer blog to Dark Diana Mistress of the Damned with not one but two siblings of the night at her side, more or less.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, suddenly rising to a mid-crouch, the ceiling was far too low for his stature. He leaned over Wendy, and opened each eye, then gave her a few little love taps to bring her just to the brink of consciousness. “I gave them just a little more than you to keep them under. I didn’t know whether you wanted them to talk, sometimes I like them to talk, confess, scream, spit, whatever.” My brother paused and looked down at her like she was Christmas ham and looked back up at me. Smiling that plastic smile. “It seems necessary sometimes, but it’s up to you. I think she’s past a confession at this point.”
“I know all I need to,” I said stonily.
“I figured as much.” He smirked.
Wendy’s eyes rolled back and forth under her lids and then fluttered. She looked around, obviously confused. Unable to move her head, as it was pinned with plastic wrap across her forehead. She saw me and her eyes went hot and spicy; I could almost see blood squirting out of them.
I could feel it then, my heart pounding, the dark dancer gripped the knife, moved my hand, and my feet went on their own. I let go, let it take me, as it purred incessantly in my ears.
I stood, as if someone yanked my strings, and glided over to her side, staring down at her.
She was beautiful, a perfect specimen, really. It was a shame. A beautiful tragedy.
Wendy was my friend, kind of. That was what made it special, the setting, the night, the company.
She looked up at me with wide terrified eyes now, she’d seen the knife, she could no doubt feel the squashing pressure of it now. The helplessness, the hopelessness. The cornered animal; anger leaving and being replaced with a dreadful reflection. She could feel it now, no doubt see it in my empty eyes.
Wendy knew she was about to be swallowed, there was no other way. Not a muscle she could move, not a penny she could spend, not an eyelid she could flutter. Nothing would spare her this, this was fate, this was the end, her end, and it was as beautiful and poetic an end I could ever hope to see.
Only one question savaged me; where to start?
I put my hands through her hair, making a soothing mocking cooing noise. It’s sibilant voice humming below my own.
Tears leaked from her eyes, and she made a pitiful mewling noise, a white frothy spittle gathered under the tape around her mouth.
I felt the boney fingers curling on top of mine, squeezing the knife, lifting my hand like Abraham, but no one would call out, no loving god would stop this.
It came down like a guillotine falling, such beautiful effortless purpose, a thread through the head of a needle.
The knife entered her torso just under her ribs, she gasped as the cool steel touched her. An almost ecstatic sound of breath escaped and held, resisting, then relenting. Her body tensed and went limp. Only her eyes held onto some tiny spark of something.
I stood there for a moment feeling it. Life, death, power, powerless, emptiness. A tingling sensation traveled down my back and to my legs as I continued to cut.
She breathed raspily over spurts of disgusting sticky blood. Her fingers dancing and convulsed under the plastic.
I was somewhere about two inches into her chest cavity when she finally died, near her heart. I felt it stop beating, listlessly clinging to life just for the sake of routine.
Wendy slowly wound down like a clock, just slipping away. Her golden skin; pallid and white, specks of blood on her face.
I’d managed to keep most of it contained the plastic did the rest. There was something there, a tremendous feeling of relief, something I’d been holding onto let go. Like I’d discovered a phantom limb left to atrophy. A balled fist finally unclenched, a third eye opened, a set of wings stretched for the first time. A complete unwinding of a tension I didn’t even know I’d stored up over a lifetime.
Released all at once and all at once I knew I’d have to do it again, and soon.
–
Shit, fucking facebook, I’ve literally just been shitposting all day and forgot to even post this haha.
And now I have nothing to talk about.
Welp, enjoy the chapter haha.
This is not true, I was looking for a new job still.
But I hope you enjoyed the poem yesterday, by all the likes I’m guessing people did, I was just listening to that song the other day and it stirred up something inside of me and I had to make it my own, just a little bit.
This chapter is the start of part two and it’s kind of the start of a subnarrative, and sort of the theme for the whole book. If the last book was about death, this book is about rebirth and the pains associated I guess.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day.
See you…
–
“I say if you cross the devils ladder you must pay the devil!” A voice carried over the howling of the cold wind coming down the mountain.
The carriage halted it’s horses, the carriage driver was a large broad man wrapped up tightly. He got down from coachman’s seat to see what the ruckus was about.
The coachman cautiously scanned the snowy trail that passed through the rocky cliffs. The trail lead up the Carrauntoohil mountains known colloquially as ‘the devils ladder’. There was nary a soul to be seen. Only the rocky crags dusted with fine snow and the cold wind blowing in the coachman’s face. He wrapped his face tighter and climbed back up onto into the drivers seat and mushed the horses to continue up the trail. They whined bitterly and the coach creaked as it climbed the steepening trail.
“That is I, I am the devil!” A voice called out and then a man appeared as if from nowhere. The snow and the wind made it hard to see but the man had been laying in wait behind a large rocky outcropping. The hiding spot has blended into the rest of the mountain under the snow.
The coachman pulled his face covering down to gawp at the strange man.
“Be done with this foolishness and get out of my way!” The coachman called out.
“I will get out of your way” The man said. He was of average height but had a long bedgraggled beard and wild eyes rubbed red raw. The man just stood there but as he did more of his ilk came out of their hiding place behind the outcropping and joined at his side. They were savage looking carrying scythes and pitch forks and large butcher’s knives and woodcutters axes as weapons. “As soon as you give us all that you carry and then a little more.” The wild man said wide eyed
“Highwaymen then?” The coachman shouted over the roar of the wind.
“Call us what you like but you will not leave Carrauntoohil alive this day unless you give us whats in that carriage.” The highwayman said gesturing with a large rusty butchers knife.
The coach driver looked back thoughtfully at his carriage and then turning back to the highwayman he said. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, this day or any other.”
The highwayman laughed and wiped frost from his large unkempt beard. “You speak such honeyed words for a coachman, perhaps we will cut out your silver tongue and fashion a necklace from it.” The wildman chuckled with his shaggy cohorts.
The coachman seemed to slump in his seat exhaling deeply. Not from fear or doubt but instead a profound resignation that washed over him. Again the coachman climbed down from the carriage and landed heavy footed in the snow in the shadow of mount Carrauntoohil.
“You may take whatever you want after you kill me.” The coach man said as he drew an iron warclub from his belt. “But not before.”
The bearded man laughed and nodded “But not before, you are a brave one.” He looked eitherside of himself and said to his cohorts “Kill him!”
The bandits were a disorganized rabble and their attack was that of desperate fury. They leapt into battle as if the coachman were the cold and the wind and their empty bellies personified. Their feet crunching the snow as they charged.
The coachman did not flee their shouts, he stood his ground and waited his distance. They fought without formation or strategy, relying on numbers, surprise and brute force.
But none of these factors phased the coachman. The first bandit came at him with a pitch fork. He expected them to be cowards and encircle him and strike at his back but the hunger in their eyes betrayed their savagery. They were thin and starved and cold, their desperation had turned them into little more than wolves. They struck out as dying men struck out at the living, mindlessly and with unrelenting ferocity.
But they were slow and weak and the coachman was neither, he caught the head of the pitchfork and twisted it away from his body. The wooden shaft of it was so damp from the snow and the cold it snapped off in his hand. Not to break off his attack the bandit attempted to skewer the coachman with broken haft.
The coachmen’s strike was a perfect measured brutality, in stark contrast to their own. He struck the bandit with military precision to the side of his head to soften his skull. Then he struck it again in the same place to completely obliterate it. The blow sending shards of skull and brain matter at the other bandits.
Something that would have deterred other men, but not hungry wolves. They kept coming, spurred on by the steady roar of their bellies.
“I have no desire to kill you all, but mark my words, I will do so!” He was tall and stood firm like the mountains and the cold winds rushed through his words but they were too far gone to hear it.
They kept coming like an avalanche of pure need striking at him with tattered old scythes covered in rust. Axes with burred handles and knives that were as blunt as spoons. They did not stop, but neither did the coachman. He struck them down one after another with the cool clinical disinterest of a butcher slaughtering lambs until but one remained.
A woman with a kitchen knife roaring like an evil spirit leapt at the coachman and for a moment he hesitated and he could not parry the blow. The knife struck home tearing through the layers of raggedy clothing revealing a thick plate and chainmail armor. The tip of the knife shattered on contact. But the woman, undeterred by this and driven by pure madness aimed to cut the coachman’s throat. Something he could not allow.
He struck the woman with an upward blow killing her instantly, blood erupting from her mouth as she toppled into the snow.
The coachman looked down at her as she seemed to shrink into the snow, pink with her blood.
“Forgive me, by my honor I cannot allow you to have what I carry.”
The man with the beard was the last one left alive.
“What have you devil? Should I spare your life?” The coachman called out as he approached the highwayman.
“Nay sir” He highwayman said dropping to his knees in the snow surrounded by the bloodied bodies of his kinfolk. “I will join my village” He smiled, his red eyes seemed almost relieved looking up at the coachman. “And you, I hope to see you one day kind sir, in Mag Mell.”
“As you wish” The coachman said his voice ringing with a tone of resignation.
He killed the man with one blow to his head. There was very little blood. The man slumped to his side and fell to sleep as the snow started once more, covering him and his comrades in a blanket of fine white sleet.
The scene was maudlin and the coachman felt cursed to be standing in this graveyard of his making. He wished bitterly that it could have been different. He cursed himself as he cleaned his iron cudgel with a handkerchief as he made his way back to his coach.
–
Check out the rest of the chapter here.
I could’ve been there
I didn’t know about those-
But now it’s too late.
Only here for an hour
We wont know until it’s gone
I didn’t know you-
I’d have tried harder
To make you smile just once more
You would leave so soon.
Try to find the best
One day I’ll come to find you
Wherever you are.
So this is a weird one for me because I don’t usually review kids movies, I don’t usually watch kids movies. But Mary Poppins is a classic from my childhood so I felt I had to watch just to gauge how desperate and depraved the industry had gotten. I wanted to know how absolutely out of ideas they are and they didn’t disappoint. There isn’t a single new idea to be found.
Where to begin with this movie? How would I describe it in one word? Uninspired? Pointless? Flaccid? Cynical?
Ok that’s a lot of words.
I didn’t expect much from this but I expected to be pleasantly surprised since this is a weird franchise to bring back. So you know right off the bat the movie is back either because they have new exciting ideas or want to be more true to the books or they’re just desperate for cash and want to dig up an old movie to milk for nostalgia.
Imagine my shock that it’s the latter.
The first thing that shocked me was the fact it’s not a remake it’s trying to be a cannon sequel. I didn’t know whether to be mad or impressed by the chutzpah it took to do that. It’s like bringing out a sequel to the bible. You can’t even be mad, you’re just stunned someone would have the gaul to do that.
So I’m like ‘ok ok lets just see what happens’, then proceed to be bored for two hours as the movie is basically a shot for shot remake of the original but worse.
First off this movie just confuses me because Mary Poppins just shows up, but only specifically for this family and no one questions why and why she hasn’t aged more than just mentioning it off the cuff, seriously is she a vampire? Is she satan? With a different director this could have been a horror movie. A weird magical being comes down from the sky to be alone with this guys kids.
The casting is ok I guess, I mean Julie Andrews was practically perfect in every way and honestly Emily Blunt kinda comes off as a bitch. I don’t know how Julie Andrews did it but she was stern but never came off like she thought her shit didn’t stink.
Mentioning Julie Andrews is weird because the movie has a bunch of really weird and bad cameos, notably from Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury and Meryl Streep? Julie Walters is of course in every English kids film now for reasons. And I know Julie Andrews is still alive and they must have asked her to come back in a cameo but she had to have turned it down and I can see why. The Angela Lansbury cameo is weird because this movie did seem like it was ripping off Bedknobs and Broomsticks a lot which is my number one childhood movie and if they do a shitty cash grab remake of that I will burn disney down (in minecraft).
Because there’s this shitty singalong bit where they’re having a bath and they go under the sea for no particular plot reason, it’s just an excuse for a song and some cg. Whereas in Bedknobs they actually needed to go under the sea. It wasn’t an excuse to use the cgi budget.
Meryl Streep is the weirdest cameo because just why? What kids movies is she famous for? Sophie’s choice? It’s just a weird choice, I guess it’s just because of her singing in Momma mia maybe, I dunno. It just felt really out of place and her scene is just a crappy remake of the floating house scene in the original. And it was totally irrelevant to the plot.
Because they have a magical trip into the painting of this vase which is a crappy remake of the scene when they enter the chalk painting in the original. But then they chip the vase and have to get it fixed by Meryl Streep who can fix anything apparently. And the reason they need it fixed is because they need money or they’ll lose their house to the bank or whatever. So she fixes it but it turns out its not worth anything so everything up to that point in the movie is just a waste of time with shitty broadway musical interludes with the most forgettable songs ever.
The plot couldn’t be more basic; ‘Oh no evil white male bankers trying to steal my house, we need money to save the house’. I mean is there an older plot? I could think of like ten movies that did this better right off the bat.
My thing with this movie is it’s sort of trying to copy the appeal of Paddington, the thing with that though is Paddington had never been done on the big screen I don’t think. His re-imagining was necessary and the movies were fun. The stories were basic but the characters and jokes were good. They’re both enjoyable films. But I feel like this movie just exists to capitalise on that, it exists not because someone knew it needed to happen but because someone knew they needed a new boat.
It’s not a bad movie, it’s just not good enough to exist. It just ok, and just being ok doesn’t warrant a remake or a reboot or a direct sequel. If you’re going to dig up the corpse of a classic you better make that shit shine and they didn’t, everything about it is just bog standard and lazy and by the numbers which is just frustrating. It’s cynicism leaps off the screen and when you see through the bright light you see the rotting corpse of the original movie being puppetted around on stage by greedy soulless blood sucking producers who have no tact and no respect for a classic movie and would probably dig up their mothers to pluck out her gold fillings.
The movie as a whole from the songs and the acting and the accents feels like a school play or a broadway adaptation of the movie, it doesn’t feel cannon to it’s own world. It feels cheap, it feels like an imitation of the original and it stinks. It’s like they tried to cargo cult the original movie, the name is there, the settings and the music but the spirit and the magic that made the movie what it was just isn’t.
I mean they replace Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep character with this schlubby guy who’s a ‘Lamplighter’, oh bro that’s so creative, that’s nothing like a chimney sweep. And of course there’s a part where all the lamplighters dance like the chimney sweep scene but less good. I don’t know if I can’t like anything anymore but I remember liking the dancing in the original and the dancing and songs just sort washed over my face without really registering in this movie.
Don’t waste your time on it and show your kids the original movie, because it still has the same magic this movie totally fails to recapture.
Last warning hollywood/disney; Stay away from this angry gymcel manbabies childhood!
If you come for the goonies or bedknobs and broomsticks all bets are off! (In roblox)
Hey there,
So I got fuck all done this week, call it ‘writers block’ if you want but I don’t really get that I just need to think about a scene in the shower and it usually unravels, don’t ask me how that works. But it leads to like hour long showers and stupidly high water bills to create well structured scenes no one reads haha.
But this week I was busy with work and other things and I just couldn’t focus so I ended up writing about a line or two max. Don’t fret imaginary people I still have content for thursday.
I worry less about keeping to schedule than I do churning out garbage and half of me is thinking I shouldn’t have started this book in my current state because I’m ruining it and there’s really no going back. But I mean fuck what am I ruining? No one cares, why should I? I’m gonna keep on keeping on basically.
Weird enough though I was thinking I should’ve done Diana 2 instead of embarking on fantasy epic trilogy. I dunno why, I was just thinking about how I felt when I wrote that and the music I was listening. A lot of my feelings are tied up in that idea. Because when I was reading the books that inspired it I was deeply in love with the woman I thought would be the love of my life, safe to say that’s not the case now.
But at the time, it’s like that music and that subject matter conjures up those feelings for me. Which is pretty fucked up since those books are like the least romantic books ever and mine are exactly the same haha. I guess there must be something romantic about serial killers or people wouldn’t love them so much. Regardless, this book was crafted with that love and part of me recently has been longing for that.
Maybe absence is making the heart grow fonder or I’m just forgetting all the stuff that made me mad.
Funny I watched that new Ted Bundy movie, the one with Zach Efron and it was a pretty shitty movie honestly. Because it couldn’t decide who the main character was and the editing made it feel more like a music video than a movie. It was just badly directed and written and paced, Zach Efron was incredible in it though and it did a good job making me doubt he actually did it. Because I mean if you look at all the evidence against him it really is just a pile of circumstantial stuff. There’s no hard evidence and we see all the time that the police fake this stuff when they like someone for a crime and need to close it. DNA apparently is about as reliable as a chocolate condom but we’re made to believe it’s the nail in the coffin. Also fibre evidence was debunked as basically a hoax not too long ago. The fbi was exposed as completely fabricating it. It was just something they could use to seal a case they didn’t have a lock on.
We see this kind of dishonest tactics used by the police constantly because the focus isn’t on finding the truth it’s just on closing cases to appease the public and the media. They don’t care about finding the right guy, they just care about finding someone that fits. And the person that fits is the one who can’t prove they didn’t do it.
Like you always hear people say “He was the nicest guy” when they talk about friends of serial killers but what if they were just really nice guys and they were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and they’re using this to try and skew our perspective and make us believe something that goes against our own initial sense of a person.
I mean you can never really know and people ‘well he confessed’ yeah but for years he protested his innocence despite facing the death penalty and he said he confessed just to buy more time. When you put people against the wall they’ll confess to nearly anything. It amazes me how little actual evidence there is in cases like this. I always thought the murders that happened after he escaped jail were the nail in the coffin, but there actually isn’t a lot of evidence he did those and they didn’t even fit the MO of the original murders and it makes a lot more sense that they just had these murders with no suspects but since he was on the run it made sense to just pin them on him. It’s a pretty easy sell to the media.
Also in the movie, I’m not sure this happened in real life, but a cop totally lies in a deposition. You’d have to be a moron to believe his testimony, it’s so blatant. He says Bundy confessed off the record but it’s legal to bug interviews in that but somehow mysteriously the bug wasn’t working and just when he made this huge confession that he was a vampire. I laughed my ass, it was so silly, how did he think that would sound in court? It’s just nonsense.
It reminds me of this documentary I watched where this guy joked that he must have done the murders while he was sleeping but the cops took it literally and he spent the next 20 years in prison until he was released. They took an obvious joke as a confession and nailed him. It’s ridiculous, it makes ‘innocent until proven guilty’ look like a joke.
The legal system is totally broken.
But I suppose the movie was interesting just for that but I guess this is the biggest reason I’m against the death penalty. Because Bundy is dead, we’ll never know the truth, ever. He could’ve been working in prison to prove his innocence or writing books about the crimes proving his guilt once and for all. But that’ll never happen now because he’s dead.
Just not knowing and knowing I’ll never know makes me mad haha.
Anyway bit of digression, I guess. I’m just thinking things over and I even though I said I didn’t think it would work out with her and I believed that I always wanted it to. I always thought or I hoped that we would eventually end up together. Part of me still believes that and I know she believed that too considering how crazy she went over me dating someone else.
I kinda thought if I dated someone else it would break that spell but it really didn’t, it might have made it even worse. I’ve probably fucked it up for good now, but I suppose it’s better to think that than to dream that someday we’ll make things worse. Not just because it’s sad but also because I don’t want to become complacent and imagine it’ll fall in my lap and then it just never does. If it’s real then I want to go out and get it myself.
Obviously it’s not my only motivation for wanting to move but it’s up there.
Anyway I’ve rambled enough, I think I might be a sad manbaby neat and do a review about Mary Poppins haha. Or look for more work, actually plan a future that isn’t a fucking smokescreen.
See you…
–
The outside air was hot, a tropical wind like a hair dryer blowing in my face. My caked make up courtesy of Wendy melted like a wax mask off my face.
Sirens in the distance crept over the shoreline, a sudden feeling of impending brain fart looming.
What could I do, except throw myself on the mercy of a barrage of police questions with only my cute-girl routine to fall back on. “It wasn’t me, Mr. Scary Policeman, it was the one armed man.”
It was a toss up to what disgusted me more; the thought I’d actually have to resort to that, or that it might actually work. Good looks didn’t last forever.
My number one priority was finding Paul, and getting as far the hell away from there as possible. With Wendy more or less dealt with, that only left her little commandment breaking brother, Denny. Although, I struggled to think which if not all the commandments he’d broken, surely he didn’t honor his father or his mother. Incest and drug-taking were apparently just a given.
My plan was pretty slick; escaping out the rear fire door, since doubling back through the main hall might put me back on Wendy’s warpath. Considering she wasn’t buried under a ton of chipboard, which seemed a likely resting place for the wicked witch of the West Coast. Or even worse; an awkward conversation with Dharma over a dead cop. Also, I couldn’t pretend to hope Denny hadn’t heard the shots. Or for that matter had missed the waves of startled human cattle stampeding into the parking lot and disappearing into the night.
It was a good bet he thought he was well on his way to enacting some kind of bloody revenge on my hapless ‘aunt’ who wasn’t home. For—of course—ruining what could’ve been a lovely evening for his demented sister/possible lover. Or, option two—he was waiting with his hand on a large knife or gun for either me or his sister to come out. So they could then ship off to Aspen in the middle of the night and blow Orange County a kiss from the slopes with new names and probably new noses.
I opened the fire exit with a mechanical clunking noise followed by lots of banging and scraping and a distinct smell of week-old garbage. The back of the laser arcade was a tight and cluttered alley opening onto a strip mall behind the arcade.
The sirens were getting louder, so if Denny was still there he’d have to be getting more nervous and trigger-happy by the second.
I looked down at myself, at the silly pink prom dress. What was it I was planning to do exactly? Teen movie him to death?
A grave scraping, like death’s scythe in the shadows around my feet sent icy shivers up my bare ankle. It was followed by a bitter mocking chuckle from the dark back seat. I breathed out, and reached down to pick up whatever the hell I’d almost tripped over.
The moonlight lifted its lidded eyes a slant to shine down on this unholy implement. It was just a pipe, some kind of gas pipe maybe; no clue, really—I wasn’t a plumber. It was heavy on one end with a gnarly looking gauge or something sticking out.
Clue it is.
Who did that make me? Miss Scarlett or Madame Peacock? Was there a pink Clue character?
‘This will do nicely,’ the thing inside said; but not in so many words. Its teeth bared behind its leathery wings, sending a rush of blood through the tips of my fingers. It made me feel magnetized, electric, like I was sticking to the walls. Like I was Spiderman, crawling unseen above everyone’s heads, as I traced through the dark in my ridiculous pink dress—ruffles and all. Quietly, I worked my way along the side of the laser arcade, back around to the front.
The alley leading onto the strip mall was cramped, and smelled like old hamburger meat. No doubt it was filthy. But the darkness was kind to it and me, as I peeked around the side of the pastel-colored building at the now more-or-less vacant parking lot.
Except for one stretch Hummer.
The parking lot was pretty well-lit but the moon had given me a few dark pools in which to wallow. There was a large billboard on wheels facing the road, and a few trucks dotted about. They probably belonged to the furniture store on the other side of the arcade.
With the pipe in hand, I hiked up my skirt like Lady Chatterley about to descend her carriage or walk over a pothole, skittering along the ground as low as possible. I came up behind the billboard and peeked out for a closer look.
There was no movement. Although, the tinted glass and the inherent clash of the shadows against the bright parking lot lights made it impossible to see inside. I smelled axel grease and looked down at my hands and dress. I was covered in it. The pipe was the obvious culprit. I made a silent yuck face and slipped back into the dark mask.
My body felt loosely coiled, the sensation of letting go mashed against the rising tide of ultimate control. Black powerful waves tossed tiny boats aside like they were in the bath tub of Cthulhu’s baby brother.
Slinking low, I made it around the back of a white truck, edging nearer to the limo, The sound of the sirens were getting closer, but not close enough. I wagered I had time, but for what?
Was I going to play with him right there and now before the cops could come and whisk me away to the local funny farm?
A quick bludgeoning, I had probably about two minutes max to deal with him, but no time to escape. Escape? Why would I do that? I was a hero, wasn’t I?
I’d dropped the castle on the Wicked Witch, and I was about to get the butler with the lead pipe in the parking lot. It would wrap up nicely, a neat little bow; not exactly how I expected it to go, but it was definitely a memorable evening.
I was actually surprised the cops weren’t here already. Cantwell really must have been going solo up until now, and I assumed hadn’t told anyone where he was on his unwarranted and illegal stake out of yours truly. The siren might have been for someone else, sirens are not an uncommon thing to hear in California. But surely one of the fleeing masses must have taken the time to dial 911. It was possible that a frantic crowd might just assume that everyone else was dialing 911 and they didn’t have to. Nevertheless staying around waiting for them wasn’t my best option for tonight’s entertainment.
I slipped around the truck, trying to keep the rustling noises of my dress to a minimum. As I got closer to the limo, I could hear music and now I could see around the other side. The driver’s side door was open and the music was coming from inside. Some obnoxious dub step, blaring from the front seat but there was no movement. Maybe Denny was taking a nap, or had stepped out to take a leak. Was it even remotely possible he hadn’t noticed the stampede of teens in the parking lot?
Maybe heroin makes you deaf.
He could’ve just been dead on the front seat with a needle in his arm; that would’ve been neat albeit anti-climactic. I edged along the driver’s side of the limo. I was low, but kept my eyes on the wing mirrors to see inside. It was too dark to make out anything interesting, or hear anything above the annoying music and my heartbeat.
The heat of the tropical night gave way to a cold shiver from the pit of my stomach. A loose tittering of pronged chicken feet pricked my skin, as the dark one wrestled into the front seat and pulled me closer to the door. I was scared but it pulled me closer, and I couldn’t hope to resist, I was on rails, a twisted passenger on a ride in Dahmerland.
All the hairs on my neck raised and licked the air, feeling the vibrations. The night, pricks of light dancing on the head of a pin, so clear and sleek not black but a luminous detailed gray.
Through the mirror, I could see him. Denny was just sitting there bolt upright; not moving. Creeping closer, the wings at my back, a righteous wind made my foot fleet, and I closed the gap quickly and quietly, keeping flat against the limo.
Peering in at a low angle I could see one of his sneakers under the uniform, a splotch of what looked like cranberry juice on it.
–
This chapter as you can probably tell is me trying to subtly ease you into a massive exposition dump haha. Something I pride myself on, I am the ultimate luber of exposition dumps haha. I will make you swallow that big pill of information with a spoonful of sugar. No seriously though I think that is one of my strengths, exposition is one of those things you can’t get around sometimes and I see it done so badly in a lot of stuff even in Conan there are big exposition dumps that are really out of place and pointless. I try my best to see them and break them up and deliver them in a way that doesn’t feel like a slog. So I hope you get that and it doesn’t seem to heavy, trying to show not tell but it’s really hard to avoid that sometimes.
Hey,
Don’t have much to go off today but here’s the latest chapter, it’s slow going honestly, I’m not as focused as I was before. I dunno I think my writing at one point was getting better but now I sort of think it’s getting worse haha. Not worse, just lazier I guess.
I was reading Conan last night and the story was sort of garbage, Conan goes to steal a thing finds ancient aliens and then the tower falls down the end but it had a lot of flair and it was fun and the description isn’t over the top a lot of it just plot but you get a good feel like you’re really there seeing what he’s seeing and I’m not sure you get that from what I’m writing.
But you know, I hope it’s fun at least, there’s some action in this chapter, after the sort of slow start, this new character who I sort of borrowed from Arthurian legend is a lot of fun, I just had to steal him. He’s one of these characters like Cur that takes on several mantles because in these mythological stories there’s a limit to how much stuff a certain character can do. This wasn’t marvel where you have a billion writers taking one character and stretching them across a million books of total nonsense where they fight alongside the jackson five or whatever. Total bullshit where comics are basically fanfiction where spiderman is a transgender midget polynesian hemophiliac diaper fur with glocoma.
They’re more like real life where a person does one awesome thing their whole life and maybe not even that. So I sort of had to take Cur and make a plot by combining him with a few different characters because otherwise his story would have ended after the first battle. And I sort of created my own meta universe where he was supposed to die but he didn’t creating a new time line.
Anyway, that’s enough nonsense ranting, I promised myself I would try to find a new job today. I keep thinking about starting up a youtube channel but I just couldn’t do that, my autism wouldn’t allow it. I just don’t think it would do well and I want a real job where I can be around people a couple of hours a day. I know I hate people and my autism makes me want to lock myself away infinitely but I think I need to be around people every now and then just so I don’t forget how to talk haha.
See you…
–
South of Meenlaragh in Corveen bog the ruins of a small castle lay overgrown by the marsh. Creeping vines covered it like a fur coat as it seemed to sink into the murk.
The sun was slowly sinking into the bog, the light bluing with the strange mists that hovered over the peat and muck. The sounds of birds in the trees were thick and deafening in their splendour. But deep in the hold of the castle there was a stolen warmth and a cloaked merriment.
In the keep a small group of strangely dressed brigands sat around a broken feast table strewn with unappetizing foreign dishes. Fish heads in sea brine, boiled toad, all manner of eels and snakes from the bog writhed in states of death and half-life, insects too seemed to be on the menu.
The feast hall was small and decrepit and dark, only a few sconces were lit, others seemed to be long burnt out or ripped from the walls. All decorations and finery the castle once had were undoubtedly pilfered long ago. All that remained were tattered moth eaten tapestries and a few decorative weapons caked in decades of rust. All but one item seemed unloved and aged. On the wall behind the head of the table hung a decorative harp made of finely hewn wood and encrusted with beautiful shining gems. The carvings on the harp were intricate and spiralled all around the finely crafted instrument. Images engraven were that of various animals and a horned man sitting amongst them.
The brigands feasted under black hoods and armoured cloaks. Their hands were more clawlike than human shining dimly with what seemed like scales and other malformed oddities. Their mouths clacking as they ate as some lacked teeth while others had sharp thin shark teeth shining like daggers in the dim fire light.
Suddenly an odd noise tickled them as if it had been there all along under the sounds of their merriment but only now had they noticed it. A strange whistling like that of many birds singing together but not coming from outside.
The head of the table flipped his cloak and stretched out a scaled humanoid arm. At the end of it were fat toadlike fingers forming something almost like a fin, he held it up to silence the others at the table.
They froze and turned to a darkened corner which seemed to be the source of the strange bird noise. Then came the sound of clinking metal and shaking of chain.
Out of the darkness emerged a huge humanoid figure dressed in a green armour. He had a distinctive covered helmet of which large antlers that looked like tree branches grew out of the top. On his belt hung an ornate axe. It’s handle appeared to be simply a strong birch branch holding a piece of silvery metal which had raw edges. It shone like that of a stone that fell from the sky glinting like a diamond or a quartz in the sconce light. In his hand the knight carried a bow of holly and he whistled as he walked creating an unnerving sound as if thousands of birds filled the room.
“Who goes there?” The head of the table called out. A slender dark figure with a sly hushed voice.
“Fear not, child of the dark depths, I mean you no harm”
The head of the table was confused but sneered when he heard what the stranger called him. “How do you come to know us?” He questioned.
The knight bowed humbly “Forgive me sir, for I have watched you and your countenance speaks to foreign blood, not of this soil.”
“Our blood is older than this soil.” The host spat.
“That too I am aware of, therefore we are the same sir.” The strange green knight bowed again crossing the holly in front of his plated chest.
The head of the table was an alien figure, with bulbous black fishy eyes and glinting scaled skin and a wide mouth full of sharp tiny teeth. “Well then, come sit with us and tell us why you have come visitor.” The man grinned and then scowled at his underling who sat at his side. The underling was a squat creature with huge whiskered lips and wide slanted slits for eyes. He looked up at his master startled and then quickly vacated his seat and pulled it out for the knight.
The knight rose from his bow “Most hospitable of you.” The knight said as he slowly walked around the table. Passing the other inhuman malformed creatures that sat staring up at the stranger with their wide fish eyes.
The knight sat upon the chair and waited for his host to speak. Closer to the light of the table the knight’s armor was more apparent. An unusual set that shone an emerald green with gold inlays and patterns that seemed to replicate trees and roots forming spiral symbols.
“So what is it you seek stranger?”
“I would that you would know me that I would not be a considered a stranger. My name Bertilak de Hautdesert but you may know me as ‘Bredbeddle’ if you so wish.”
The host breathed heavily and spoke through his teeth “Goodly Bredbeddle, wouldst that you would tell me why you’ve come, that I would know you!”
“I find it odd you don’t remember me.” The knight chuckled “For am I not memorable?”
“Should I remember you, have we met before?” The strange head of the table asked.
“I am certain sir, we have met before, in this very room no less.” The knight gestured as he spoke, his armor clinking but displaying no weight as he moved. “Are you not the one they call Forgal the wily?”
“You must be mistaken, I’ve never heard that name before” The host said as he turned to one of his men and signalled for him to bring them more wine.
“One year ago today, we met in this room and struck a bargain.”
“I recall no such bargain, what does this pertain to?” The host asked.
“But you will admit that you are Forgal the wily?” The knight turned his head up and pointed over his hosts head without raising his elbow. “For you have the harp he took from me”.
“Are you calling me a thief?”
“Nay sir, I am calling you the possessor of my harp and one year ago today we struck a bargain.”
“What of this nonsense, what bargain?”
“The bargain made here that I would let you strike me and one year after I would return the strike and reclaim the harp.”
“I tire of this foolishness” The host waved his hand and instantly out of the dark came a curved long blade and cut the knights head from his shoulders.
The helmet with the head fell on the table and knocked over a bowl of live crickets.
The group of brigands erupted into triumphant laughter, all conspiring in whispers as to whom would claim his armor and weapon.
“Fool!” The host spat. “Forgal the wily recognises no bargains made with the tuatha.”
“There is no need for name calling sir” A disembodied voice said.
The brigands instantly stopped their cavorting as the voice seemed to come from all around them. It seemed animal in aspect, as if the birds in the trees were forming words of their own.
The body of the knight had not fallen, still it sat upright in it’s seat and then without pretence it reached for it’s detached head. “I see that you have no desire to honour our agreement” The knight said as he stood and tucked his own head under his arm. “I bid you good day sir.” He said bowing with his head under the crook of his arm as he left the keep.
Forgal looking after him with his wide fishy mouth hanging open.
The brigands sat for a moment befuddled as if they’d been visited by a spirit or fallen to some drink that had given them all the same strange dreams.
Twilight was upon the bog and the world was still and grey.
The knight of green replaced his detached head on his shoulders and sighed.
“Come Daurdabla, apple-sweet murmurer!
Come, Coir-cethair-chuir, four-angled frame of harmony,
Come summer, come winter,
Out of the mouths of harps and bags and pipes!”
–
If you want to see what happens next, head on over to inkitt by clicking this link In the pines.

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