Tragic Dreams

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her majesty helps: Masterlist of Writing Help for Writers

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Reblogged 3 days ago from willgrahampa
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Source: hermajestyhelps
The Status of My Love Life a.k.a. An Over 3,000 Word Essay on Why I Feel I Have So Much Difficulty in Attaining Romantic Relationships That I Am Writing in Order for Me to Understand That Reason for Myself

baptisms:

Before I even get to laying out all of my alleged romantic/boy problems for any scrutinizing reader to feel disgust or pity for, as if I’m loading a washing machine with nothing but period stained underpants, this must come first and foremost; I am a nineteen year old girl who has never engaged in sexual intercourse and I had my only romantic, sexual relationship when I was 18. There, I said it. And while some of you may be thinking, “God is this another fucking white bitch complaining about her stupid white bitch problems” or “Who gives a flying shit” know that I am writing this more for myself to analyze and understand than for anyone to criticize and shit all over. All of us have the right to droll over our own personal problems any way we chose. My way just so happens to be writing an essay about it and then posting it on my blog for my own self gratification, as if I’m some five year old giving her mom a sloppy finger painting to put up on the fridge. While my situation may not seem so worthy of a fucking essay, it’s something I feel I need to address for myself.  

Hey, at least Liz Lemon dated multiple guys during the course of 30 Rock, even if her love life was a running gag. And single Snooki in seasons 1 and 2 of Jersey Shore was still making out with plenty of guerilla juiceheads despite her confessional whines.

Seriously, it’s kind of sad when you realize that while you may be a combination of Hannah and Jessa from Girls, you still have the sex life of Shoshana in season 1.

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Reblogged 3 months ago from baptisms
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AO3 IS UP »
Posted 6 months ago
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look at this sweet ass intro for my romantic comedy papers

Many movies in the history of cinema have garnered adoration that keeps them from going out of style in the public eye. However, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the few movies to have achieved a God tier-level cult following. The 1975 film tells the strange story of newly-engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, (played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon), whose chance encounter upon the castle of the “Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” Dr. Frank-N-Furter, (famously played by Tim Curry), throws them into an outlandish journey of sexual liberation. The film’s popularity is in part due to its mash-up of the musical, science fiction, horror, and comedy genres. Yet there is another movie genre that not only applies to Rocky Horror, but serves to shape its sexual plotline. While romantic comedy is cited to be supportive of the values of heterosexual marriage, Celestino Deleyto describes the ideology of the genre as one that “deals with the themes of love and romance, intimacy and friendship, sexual choice and orientation” (Deleyto 18). This ideology is achieved through the usage of a green world, which Northrop Frye identifies as a “natural society” associated with the unnatural in “the context of the ordinary world” (Frye 123-124). In turn, this green world “constructs a space which transforms reality…by protecting the lovers from the structures of social conventions and psychological inhibitions,” or a place where sexual love and desire perpetuate away from the chaste norms of ordinary society (Deleyto 18). In regards to this configuration of romantic comedy, The Rocky Horror Picture Show adheres to the genre through its usage of a green world that breeds sexual liberation and gender paradox.

Posted 6 months ago
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oh look, fanfiction

baptisms:

“Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature’s recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life”

Fuu Fuu Furi Furi Pupi held a chuckle in his throat as he felt Demonica twitch her leg to the song’s beat underneath the hospital blankets. If it weren’t for the bowl of vanilla caramel ice cream she was savoring, he bet she’d be singing along to the lyrics. Instead, she merely hummed an imitation around the spoon lodged in her mouth.  

If any of the nurses or doctors made their way into the room at that very moment, they definitely wouldn’t be seeing anything they hadn’t walked in on before; Furi with his arm protectively draped over Demonica’s shoulders, the two of them snuggled close together over a bowl of vanilla caramel ice cream, deeply invested in whatever movie he had chosen for them to watch on his laptop. It was an endearing sight, in a morbidly strange sort of way. He was, after all, the reason she was there in the first place, the evidence of his so called “goof” wrapped underneath layers of gauze and bandages. 

But no, the hospital staff noted, Furi didn’t just visit Demonica because of the guilt he felt for leaving a considerable gash in her chest, or for nearly killing her. They had paid attention to the care and interest Furi showed when he visited their friend Ribbonista while she was catatonic. Despite his intimidating and egotistical exterior, he clearly had a heart of gold. Furi was always ready to assist the nurses when they came in to change Demonica’s bandages or refill her IV bag. He always helped Demonica with the schoolwork she was missing; reading chapters of their textbook to her and helping her memorize math formulas. Yes, they had decided, Furi was definitely not a bother to the girl’s recovery. 

But besides just being an all around respectable boy, Furi’s investment in Demonica’s recovery was clearly fueled by the loving looks he gave her when he thought no one was watching. How he laced their fingers together when she rested her head on his shoulder. The way he brushed the stray pieces of hair out of her face, so carefully, as if he wasn’t sure if it would hurt her or not. 

Despite the odd circumstances, nobody could deny how tender it was. 

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Reblogged 6 months ago from baptisms
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Tagged: mjbyy • My Jungle Book Your Year • .
oh and i wrote a THING that’s not completely done but yeah

What with all the chaos the week had produced, she had never gotten the opprotunity to actually take a good look at herself in a mirror.

Did she truly age that much over the course of seven days?

In the bright bathroom light she trailed her gaze over the reflection, little by little recognizing it as her own.

At least, it is, for only a little bit longer.

She barely even remembers what she looked like before any of it happened. Nobody truly knows their identity in the first place, so to handle more than one means that some are bound to be forgotten or misremembered. 

Her hands tighten along the edges of the sinks, her eyes hardening on her face. Without the wig, with her hair dyed as it was, but with the pounds of makeup on her face, she looks like two people fused together. And neither of them are truly her.

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Posted 6 months ago
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Considering how rape jokes have become such a hot topic lately, I wrote an argumentative essay on the topic of rape, and offensive jokes, in general

What is it that makes a joke funny? From casual observation, be it from a comedy special, a satire news show, or a programming block on Adult Swim, most of what makes people laugh these days is off-color humor. Television shows such as South Park and Family Guy can attribute their success to the usage of crass and absurdist humor that makes their audiences recoil in semi-disgusted laughter. Comedy Central Roasts featured twice a year function as a two hour gala of insult jokes about David Hasselhoff’s drinking problems and Rosanne Barr’s likeness to Jabba the Hut. The internet is home to thousands upon thousands of joke sites dedicated to topics ranging from dead babies to AIDs. Furthermore, it’s not difficult to get a rise of laughter out of a Helen Keller joke. Humor that functions on being borderline-offensive seems to be making people laugh the hardest nowadays, based on the mutual understanding that such jokes are not meant to reflect upon the beliefs of the teller.

However, the aspect of being border-line offensive creates a scenario where more often than not, controversy arises over a joke that allegedly went too far to be considered funny. Such ensuing controversy stems from the idea that what was being joked about was too horrible and too upsetting to even consider making light of. Case and point, and probably what comes easiest to mind, is the rape joke. Earlier this year Comedy Central host and notoriously offensive comedian Daniel Tosh caused major controversy after making a rape joke during his gig at the Laugh Factory. He was heckled by a female audience who stated, “Rape jokes are never funny.” In retort, Tosh said the following in front of his live audience: “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now?” While feminists and comedians have always tended to find each other about as compatible as a chainsaw in an antiques store, this incident erupted in a new war between them. To feminists, humor that places women in the role of the butt serves to reclaim the usual male teller’s control over a woman’s life (Bemiller and Schneider 460). Additionally, feminists view rape jokes, and jokes about violence towards women in general, as promoting a pro-rape culture by “support[ing] the control of women through violent means” (474). In the resulting backlash of the Tosh incident, other comedians stepped forward to defend his joke, most claiming along the lines that jokes should be taken as nothing less than jokes and others citing the hypocrisy of making one subject off limits to humor. So the questions accumulate; should humor stay away from the topic of rape, can rape jokes ever be funny, and where does the line between a joke about rape and a promotion of rape culture fall? The answers to these questions are dependent upon the context and the intent of not only a rape joke, but any joke that makes light of serious topics.

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Posted 7 months ago
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Excerpt from chapter 18 of Crimes

Emily stands motionless besides the heaving of her chest. “And being who you are is exactly why you’ll get yourself killed! And this world needs you more than it needs me!”

Wrong.

Because I have no symmetry, external or internal, worthy enough to be of any use to the world. I’m not the future Lord Death humanity wants.

The terrible truth Emily is that I’ve never had faith in myself. So let me have faith in you.

“How can you say that?” I choke out, my grip tightening on her skirt. “You’re more than valuable to the world! You’re more than valuable to me!”

In the time it took to say those words, the air shifted into something stifling.

Now, the collapse of everything around us has been initiated.

And the last thread of fragility, the one barrier within Emily Valentine seemingly impenetrable, has finally snapped.

Behind every wall we construct around ourselves, as thick as our own mentalities and as strong as our willingness to survive, we are all the same; trying to protect ourselves from what scares us the most. Underneath all the obsession and compulsion for perfection, I am burdened by the fear of my own incompetence. As hard as I try, I will never surpass the expectations I was created for, like some failed lab experiment.

And I foolishly thought Emily untouched by such a similar fear.

But here it is; raw and naked before me, the exact depth of the fear she has fought valiantly to suppress.

We’re far more alike than I could have ever conceived.

With an expression like that of a wounded, rabid creature, she places herself directly in my face, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t get you! How can you have so much faith in me? I’m going to get you killed Kid! Stop sitting here with this bullshit sentiment and start hating me like you should!”

It’s like push pins are being jammed into my chest.

How low am I that all I can do is sit here and take it; with mouth agape as neither God of Death nor human, but as useless as the dirt that created Adam?

All I can do is pathetically slobber out, “Why should I hate you?”

Emily’s eyes, as I expect, contort in wet disgust. “Because I let you become the most vulnerable part of me there is!”

Suddenly, my shoulders are in her death grip, hard enough to threaten my arms from their sockets. But no, instead, she violently shakes me. “You piece of shit! You said it yourself! You can die just like everyone else! And you’re going to let yourself die for me? Be rational for once and realize that I’ve gone and done the worst thing possible to you!”

And the unworthy, defective union of God and human I am, I say, “And what’s that?”

“I fell in love with you!”

…

I suppose it’s like seeing glass shatter. First comes the initial, unprepared shock, subsequently followed by the bout of skepticism that results from watching what once was whole and there now reduced to bits and pieces.

My feelings of disbelief, (and let me reestablish that this isn’t another one of my bizarrely realistic dreams again), bubble from my chest into a constriction in my throat. “You…what did you say?”

There’s an immediate drop in Emily’s face, from hard belligerence to a firm countenance only betrayed by the redness in her eyes. But underneath, it’s quite clear that she means it, even if she is probably contemplating whether the words actually came from her mouth. “You heard me.”

It’s time for a moment of silence between us; to breathe and let the angry tension clear the room before another move can be made. Emily takes the moment to wipe away the tears in her eyes with the back of her hand and myself to feel that sensation steadily building up in my abdomen.

Then softly, almost childishly, she asks, “What else do you want me to say?”

For the umpteenth time tonight, there is nothing to say. But this time, words would only get in the way.

As useless as I felt moments ago, I feel just as hopeful now as I wrap my hands gently around her wrists.

“Nothing.”

Posted 8 months ago
preview of crimes chapter 18

As cliche as it is, there’s sadly no better way than to describe this scene with a pile of oxymorons.

Deafening silence.

Restless stillness.

Sickening relief.

Though it is only my dress shirt that lies neatly folded by my side, I feel as if I’ve been stripped of every last shred of clothing and forced open for the eyes of millions.

In reality, it’s just the two of us with this reprehensible quiet filling every corner of my bedroom. The feel of her fingertips just barely touching my skin communicates better than words ever can. Their touch stings almost as badly as the rubbing alcohol seeping into my wound. It’s not that I loathe the feeling of her soft fingers, but when they are trembling with pent up emotion and terrified of every move they make, it’s too hard to bear. 

Emily’s fingers don’t linger or feel any longer than they have to. 

My own hands have a strong hold of my knee caps. I internalize every sting that accompanies a dab of rubbing alcohol, holding it tight in my gut and redirecting the tightening of muscle to the tight clutch of my hands. 

How I wish I could just close my eyes and will my mind to believe I am somewhere else, in some alternate timeline where I am able to hold Emily. Where I am able to love her in the most intimate of ways. Where there isn’t any trouble to plague us. Where all she does is smile and plant her lips against mine. 

But every time I close my eyes all that comes to mind is the sight of gangly black legs ripping and tearing past the flesh of her back with a squelching sound that has me swallowing back the urge to empty the contents of my stomach onto the floor. While the sight of such a horror is unsettling enough, what hurts me more is knowing that Emily was trapped somewhere inside to suffer through it.

My trauma is laughable compared to hers.

“I can’t believe you didn’t notice a huge chunk of ceramic tile lodged in your shoulder,” Emily says, with none of the biting sarcasm such a statement generally calls for. Instead, her voice is like the presence of a ghost with the uncertainty it invokes. 

Her voice is a signal of change; that things will never be the same between the two of us. 

Needless to say, it’s nauseating. 

Emily’s fingers press a little harder into the flesh of my shoulder as she dabs another cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol into the open wound. Minutes before, my flesh was the sheath of a lengthy piece of bathroom tile, most likely originating from the sharp kick into the wall Gopher greeted me with. As Professor Stein and Sid carted the still unconscious inflictor of my injury out of the room, the ache of an unwelcome intruder in my flesh began to acknowledge itself. It was Emily, still somewhat unsteady on her feet, who took notice that the tear in my suit jacket was oozing blood. 

So here we sit on my bed, accompanied by this foretelling tension and a wastebasket of bloodied cotton balls. 

“Rushes of adrenaline are known to overpower pain receptors.” I finally feel gauze on my shoulder, applied with fingers that are held back from uncontrollable tremors. “It would have healed fine by itself. My body is able to repair itself in response to trauma that would otherwise send a person to the emergency room.”

While the puncture Emily has spent a good deal of time cleaning and dressing would not have been enough to kill the average human, it would have required an extensive amount of stitches and antibiotics. 

It’s a benefit of being a grim reaper that my body is able to mend any wound within an inhuman amount of time. I’ve been on the other side of attacks that would have been fatal to humans. Every bone in my body could be shattered and I’d be able to walk again within an hour. 

As long as my heart is beating I am able to regenerate myself.

But this, this is more painful than any impalement through the stomach could ever be. 

Every touch of her fingertips makes it quite clear that I’m losing her.

There’s the sound of medical tape peelings and subsequently tearing. “I’m not going to let you walk around with ceramics sticking out of your back,” Emily responds, her voice still taciturn and her touch still expecting to receive  a fatal dose of electrocution. 

In silence she continues to tend to my injury. 

It’s really quite tragic though, isn’t it? This night that held so much potential for the both of us has crumbled at our feet. Whether it is salvageable or not is debatable. 

And I have never wanted something to be no less than perfect so badly in my life. 

I suppose I can finally give this overwhelming feeling that surrounds me a name: heartache.

Posted 10 months ago

baptisms:

Draft versions of my OCs.

Reblogged 11 months ago from baptisms
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Tagged: art • mine • Crimes • .