Make no mistake, this is culture war and the would-be aristocrats are trying to kill us.
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I don’t want your free books. If a book interests me, I’ll pay fair price for it all on my own. Handing out unwanted crap is not promotion, it’s littering.
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Poor people would have health coverage if they didn’t spend money on ‘that new iPhone’
/ Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)
Deeply callous, hateful, and dismissive.
Modern equivalent of “Let them eat cake.”
Defines the GOP.
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Communication is not possible.
I’ve been a writer for 50 years;
I know what I’m talking about.
All you can do is resonate.
/ W B Kek
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Anyone defending the GOP is supporting sadistic cruelty and psychopathic hatred and greed.
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Topic for discussion, perhaps:
Horror is a style, not a genre.
Oh, it’s sold as a market category, sure, but there is no list of things one must include in order to commit horror.
On the other hand, it can be applied to any genre. You can writer science fiction, mystery, romance, or anything and also add horror to it by simply adopting a certain style.
Bonus topic:
Horror means revulsion, terror means fear. Most think of what we have labeled Horror Fiction as scary, when in fact the elements in it that disgust us are what would define it. Stephen King knows this. “If I can’t scare you I can at least disgust you,” he’s said many times. Terror and Horror are styles that dance a tarantella in an attempt to affect readers. That’s the genuine mix to which we all respond so deeply.
Facing down what scares and disgusts us. Like death and dead things, for one. Or anything else, if one is imaginative.
/ Samael Gyre
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It’s okay to criticize my work, but you’d better know what the fuck you’re talking about or I’ll criticize your critique and mock you to shreds.
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Attending movies saddens me. Perhaps because one sits in darkness, surrounded yet alone. Maybe it’s the alarming mix of public and private experience. Could be I’m just overwhelmed by the flickering pictures and loud sounds.
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Don’t lower yourself for the reader. Let the reader climb up to you.
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Why don’t ghost hunters do EVP’s in churches? Think about it.
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A contingent, ushered in to have audience with Vlad Tepes, ruler of Wallachia, featured one man who kept his hat on despite Vlad’s court etiquette rule about doffing caps.
Vlad pointed at the man and asked why he kept his had on. He was told the man’s home-country custom was to keep his had on inside and to do otherwise would dishonor his home customs.
Vlad smiled. He understood. “Then, as good hosts, we must make sure he does not dishonor his homeland’s customs.”
He then ordered spikes driven through the hat, into the man’s skull, to ensure the cap would not “accidentally” fall off, thus “dishonoring” him.
Vlad was Dragon indeed.
Another time, he spread word of a banquet to celebrate a great military victory, perhaps driving off the Turks, which was to be held in the town’s church. All were invited, and hungry peasants came to feast from all over. They crowded into the church, enjoying the meats, the wines, and breads, and each other’s celebratory company.
Vlad then had his soldiers bar the doors from the outside and guard the windows as he set the church on fire.
He ate as the screams gradually died down.
He was known to eat among the thousands he’d have impaled on pikes. These by the way were rounded on top, not sharpened. One was sat upon them, then pulled down so the pikes entered the rectum. One’s own body weight kept shoving it deeper into you. The more you struggled, the faster it went. Most victims, despite the tearing, bleeding, and rupturing, ended up dying of suffocation as the pike pushed up into their diaphragm.
Vlad was a blood-drunk, cruel dragon.
He is known today in the west as Dracula, of course, thanks to Bram Stoker and Leigh Hunt, but in Romania he’s hailed as a hero, one of the fathers of his country for having repelled and kept out the Turkish hordes. He is George Washington’s Transylvanian equivalent.
Context, and perspective, are everything.
/ Samael Gyre
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